Shattered Chain
by Penglaive
Summary: In the aftermath of Zero Requiem, a murder mystery in reverse. From the start, the assassin is known, and the victim is willing. What, then, could possibly go wrong?
1. Show Time

Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Code Geass—that honor belongs to Sunrise. I'm just exploring some untouched elements.

Formatting: "Spoken words are in quotes." _Internal character thoughts are in italics._

* * *

In spite of his pounding heart, the time, when it came, was almost blissfully calm. Always before, when death had hovered in the wings at the very crest of his plans, there had been that crushing sense of paranoia, the urgency to act mixed with a singular desperation to prevent the ultimate destruction of everything he'd worked so hard for. Now, though, he didn't have to do anything but stand there and take the blow.

It was nearly surreal, how he'd gone from having the hardest part to play to having the easiest. Lelouch had long ago memorized his few remaining lines.

Suzaku's entrance on the scene was perfect, with all the swift, dark grace of an avenging legend, a hero straight from the world of ideals, touching the collective unconscious. The sword was a sudden spike of ice into a demon's heart, powerful and true. The only thing that belied the act was the slight trembling Lelouch could feel in his chest—Suzaku's sword arm ever so slightly shaking.

_Are you crying behind that mask, Suzaku?_

_Could you still do that, after everything I've done to you?_

There was a reassuring solidness to the body Lelouch fell against, even as the world began to segue into stuttering collages of light and sound, timed with the heart that feebly, futilely struggled to beat. No matter his physical condition, though, the words that would bind his best, oldest friend forever to Zero were delivered without flaw.

Lelouch vi Britannia would die as he had lived: a consummate performer. He heard Suzaku accept his final Geass with a strained but firm voice, even as a hot rush of blood ran out between them, over everything.

_I never realized how warm it would be._

It wasn't as if the Demon Emperor were ignorant of biology or of battle, and yet somehow the thought of being, after everything, still so normally, humanly warm inside, made him desperately want to laugh—until the trembling of someone else's arm transmitted itself once more through his chest. He remembered, suddenly, as his vision begun to dim out around the edges, exactly what all this was about.

_Suzaku, I've stained your hands so much, the only way I can wipe them clean is by destroying you and making you anew, as well. As Zero, you must live to __guide the future—you, and Nunally, and everyone else who has suffered so much, for a precious, long awaited chance at peace._

Lelouch's heart was a draining hole in his chest, failing body wanting to shield the ache and stem the loss of blood and heat by curling protectively around the wound, but Suzaku's shoulder was warm and familiar where Lelouch's weight pressed into it. With the knowledge that his part was complete, the thoughts he'd fought so hard to control were finally breaking free.

Everything was breaking free.

Light, streaming in from the windows of the Ashford Clubhouse, the leather and metal cocoon of the Shinkiro bursting open into brilliance, a countertop sparkling in Sayoko's wake, the fierce smile on Kallen's face as bright as the Core Luminous, the unmistakable flash of a smirk as the smell of fresh pizza filled the air, the glint of a heart shaped locket, Euphemia's shining hair splayed playfully out across the grass, as Cornelia, sword discarded, curled flowers behind her ear—the black king; the white one. In the midst of all those memories, a small, athletic boy with vivid green eyes shared a carefree song that made a tiny girl laugh sweetly...

_Suzaku, forgive me. I don't know if I can pay enough, but…_

Bloodstained fingers slipped against the smooth surface of Zero's mask, drawing lines down into a future no one could see, but Lelouch had to believe, needed to believe, that after all the loss and pain and death he'd brought, that at the end of everything he was, he had finally gotten things right.

Suzaku pulled the sword out, the motion quick and clean, meant to spare rather than prolong, and then Lelouch was swaying, stumbling, lost. He could hear shouting from behind, and he wondered if Kallen, perhaps, had figured it out. There was no time to know.

The air rushed past him as his body tipped over the edge, robes fluttering like tattered wings.

He remembered how proud the Black Knight's ace pilot had looked, standing free and openly proclaiming the Japanese half of her ancestry. The memory of Nunnally smiling on sunny days spent outside, paper cranes nestled in her lap and birdsong sweetly filling her ears, played across his mind. He thought of Suzaku, the soft, kind side of him that Euphemia's sweet promises of peace had been able to draw out.

He remembered brighter days and warmer times, and he hoped with all his heart. _Please, let that be real again._

Lelouch's body had stopped falling. The pressure of so many possible futures crowding against the edges of his mind was nothing compared to the feel of Nunnally's soft fingers, as they found his hand. Some part of him would never quite learn how to let go of her.

"I love you," the innocent maiden whispered in the ears of the demon, and he suddenly wished he had the time to explain, to tell her everything he'd ever thought or felt, in swelling sentences that used to bubble out like pristine mountain springs when they were younger.

There was no time for that now; only a few words about the world escaped his lips. Yet, even as his lungs failed him, his mind still flared with the power of the wishes that were tumbling into memories that poured into dreams, until there was no past or present or future, but just the weight of all that ever was or could be, coming on at once:

The smell of gunmetal underneath Kallen's freshly starched Ashford uniform, and the vivid flash of sunrise that could only be Shirley's hair. Fresh white sheets in Sayoko's competent hands, and the twin reflections of a computer screen glowing on Nina's glasses. Milly's gentle bossing and Rivalz's arm, a warm weight slung around his neck. A looping string of cheese suspended from C.C.'s mouth, as Rolo's fingers flowed across ivory piano keys. A hopeful Suzaku, his hand outstretched in friendship. Ougi and Tamaki, a headband, a dream of justice. Kaguya, a vivacious innocence that reminded him so much of a tiny Nunnally, the sister who used to run after him, her eyes shining, Euphy's joyful voice filling both their ears.

The little sister he wanted to protect, the friendships he wanted to restore…

"Zero! Zero! Zero! Zero!"

Nunnally's screams were filling his ears, now, rough denials of what inevitably was, but beyond that, there was the cheering, like every family celebration and school festival and team victory rolled into one. The collective unconscious of the crowd, for a brief, temporary moment, united in a shared triumph.

It sounded like a nice world.

He was too far gone to feel the delicate hands that clutched at him anymore, but even with his heart gone from his chest, it could never be far from her, and from the depths of a mind that was so masterful at self-deception, a final thought, the last lament of a fallen creature, broke free:

_I wanted to see it with you._

_Nunnally._


	2. Special Delivery

It had been twenty three days since the Demon Emperor had been laid to rest, but those days involved hardly any rest for Zero's inheritor. Instead, he found himself swimming in a sea of political change, and for all that the waters seemed friendly, he was no less thoroughly lost, struggling to be an orator when his words were only blunt and inelegant, fumbling through sedate planning sessions when he was all instinct and barely leashed emotion.

The new Zero had never had much of a mind for politics—nor a heart, truth be told, to focus on meetings and papers when his eyes burned with a grief too deep to risk releasing and yet too powerful to fully suppress. The winged edges of a Knight pin, which he normally kept carefully hidden in his room, dug harshly into his fingers, as he at last stood beside his bed, desperately tired after a long day of attempting to be politic and yet all too certain that real rest would elude him that night as well.

_After my father... After __**Euphy**__..._

If the world had had any decency in it, her death would have been the end of him, but the Geass that chained him to life had been relentless, so once more he'd mended his shattered heart with the balm of hatred, enough to finally spill out from himself and target someone else, in addition.

_Never again_, he'd told himself, as if anger could dictate truth. _Never again will I watch someone I care for die in front of me._

He had, of course, been utterly wrong.

There was something brutally defeating in that knowledge, that after all he'd suffered, after all that he'd changed about himself as he hardened his resolve, he had still come right back around to the very same circumstance. The only mercy in the entire situation was that Lelouch's sacrificial end would be the very last of Suzaku's personal failures, if only because there was no one left to sin anymore: Kururugi Suzaku was dead. The Emperor himself had decreed it so.

Since that was true, Zero wished that Suzaku's ghost would just stop haunting him. At least that way he would be able to concentrate on his duties, particularly looking after Nunnally. Unfortunately, these days he could no sooner think of her than remember the quiet, aching misery that would spread across her face whenever she thought no one was looking. Since the mask hid his eyes, she had no way of knowing just how often he stared.

_This is eating away at her too, on the inside._

Zero wasn't sure how, but when he'd wheeled her toward the platform where Lelouch had been laid out on the morning after his death, her soft words of parting had made it clear that she'd figured out the essence of Zero Requiem. Zero would never forget the juxtaposition of the deep, wrenching pain of her expression and the steely determination he'd normally associated with her big brother's eyes. Tears streaming down her face, Nunnally had solemnly promised to honor Lelouch's sacrifice and work hard for peace in his memory.

The cost of that peace, though, was an excruciating weight for everyone who truly understood it, and the night following Lelouch's funeral, after struggling hard all day to move negotiations along, Nunnally had asked Zero once, simply, "Why?", before bursting into sobs so deep and wracking that he had feared she'd shake herself from her wheelchair. He hadn't had any answer for her then, and Nunnally hadn't asked again, though the grief remained silently between them, as a constant reminder of all they'd lost.

_At least the plan for the Damocles has been confirmed._ Despite everything, that knowledge brought some small amount of comfort.

_Lelouch, the world you wished for is coming true._

Of course, that optimistic mind frame didn't last long, as another thought rushed in to bring the grief back: _If only you were here to see it._

Zero gripped the Knight pin harder still, wondering if it would be worth it to at least get out of the mask and lie down, or if that would just invite more nightmares in his frame of mind. A soft knock at the door startled him out of that contemplation, though, and he frowned.

Empress Nunnally—it was _still_ strange to think of the gentle girl he knew holding that title, even though he'd been at the coronation ceremony—had ordered that Zero's privacy be respected, so the only one besides herself who ever visited his rooms was Sayoko. However, he'd bid the Empress goodnight an hour ago, and there was no reason for Sayoko to decide to empty the trash or change the linens at this hour of the night.

Hastily placing the pin back in its hiding spot and putting one hand on his sword, Zero crept to the front room and called out, "Who's there?"

"It's the pizza girl," a familiar voice answered. It took a moment for him to figure it out, but then Zero was quickly striding forward to open the door.

A green haired woman stood quietly in front of him, looking almost exactly as he remembered her, though the image was darkened somewhat, muted by his mask. Zero opened the door wider and took a step back to allow her entry. To his mild surprise, though, instead of simply walking in, she remained poised at the threshold, her head tilted quizzically to the side and her gaze questioning.

For a moment, Zero wondered why she was being so uncharacteristically hesitant, until the circumstances of their last parting finally came back to him. He cringed, wishing the mask would allow him the freedom of at least rubbing his forehead, where a throbbing headache was building. The blind rage from that morning was long gone now, of course, wiped out, like every other feeling, by the enormity of Lelouch's death, but the pain her words had brought was now slowly rising again at the reminder she represented, along with a certain clarity about how harshly he'd treated her.

"Come in. Please," he added softly, his voice stiff but plaintive.

She finally stepped inside far enough for him to close the door, but continued to give him a critical stare as she set down a medium sized case and placed Cheese-kun on top of it, her eyes scrutinizing him as if she were sizing him up to see how he compared to the original Zero. He wondered if she found him lacking.

"I—I'm sorry, about what I said last time," Zero stuttered out. "It's just that, about Euphy, I couldn't help getting upset..." He felt incredibly stupid trying to say this from behind a mask, as if he were deliberately hiding his expression from her, the way a liar would. C.C. certainly didn't look as if his muffled words had any effect on her.

"You can take the mask off, you know. It's not as if I don't know who I'm speaking to," she told him languidly.

"But Lelouch told me that—that Kururugi Suzaku was dead, so..."

C.C. snorted. "Melodramatic, as always. But the original Zero always took his mask off, when we were alone."

Zero shifted uncomfortably. "Still, I promised him, and I'll never be the same as the original, anyway."

"Which is exactly why it's so unappealing to hear you stumbling through your words while masked in Lelouch's image," C.C. told him, and for just a fraction of an instant, there was something pained in her expression. "You should take it off," she insisted more quietly, turning her eyes away, and this time, he didn't feel like he could deny her. Zero glanced around carefully and double checked that the door's automatic lock had engaged before taking the mask off, absurdly grateful to finally feel fresh air against his skin, even as the suddenly brighter light grated against his tired eyes, along with a brief flash of guilt.

_Would Lelouch have been mad about this?_ It would be nice to believe that his friend wouldn't want C.C. to be distressed, but Lelouch had also been the sort of person who could be remarkably petulant when his orders weren't precisely obeyed. Would he have felt that Zero wasn't taking his punishment seriously enough?

Zero just didn't know, and he sighed in exasperation, tired of second and third guessing everything he did. Maybe Lelouch had possessed the mental facilities for continuous rounds of self-scrutiny, but the new "masked champion of justice" was nowhere near close to matching him in that regard. Luckily, the fresh air on his face at least restored a little energy to him—even if the rest of the costume still haunted him with the chill of a dead man's clothing.

In truth, he could understand all too clearly why his appearance might unnerve C.C. It unnerved him, too, to be wearing what he'd considered for so long to be the appearance of Euphy's murderer, though now it had become more a painful reminder of the tragic man he'd sacrificed to quell the hatred of a savage, bloody world.

"C.C.," Zero began again, trying to force his mind back on track, "I want to apologize for the way I acted before. I know you didn't mean for...for the massacre to happen, either. I guess I'm always looking for someone to blame," he admitted, with a bitter twist of his lips. _Because I was her Knight, and I should have saved her, but this guilt is too great for me to bear without it spilling over, everywhere_. "In spite of that, I am grateful that you told me about Euphemia. About Lelouch. About the truth."

C.C. nodded, solemnly, and then, in what was seemingly a total non-sequiter, she held out her left hand toward him, palm down.

"Ah?" Zero blinked at her, confused. _Does she want me to bend down and kiss her hand, or something? _He hesitated._ Seriously? _He felt a certain sense of solidarity with her, but an uncomfortable shiver in his stomach told him that what she was asking for was going a bit far. She wasn't exactly a lady, after all.

Unfortunately, there wasn't exactly a polite way to point that out. In the mean time, Zero had also noticed that the case she'd set down was very subtly, very slowly...vibrating. He wasn't sure there was a polite way to point that out, either.

"I got a cut on my fingers, this morning," C.C. explained, impatiently waving her hand at him when he simply stood there, frozen in indecision, but Zero found that explanation really didn't help him at all.

"Um, I'm sorry you were injured?" he tried, hoping that was the right thing to say.

C.C. scowled at him.

_Great. Three weeks in a mask, and already my social skills are shot._

"Suzaku, look at my hand," she told him, as if explaining something very simple to a very small child, but he was far too concerned about something else to take offense at her tone.

"Suzaku is dead," he insisted. "I'm only Zero, now."

C.C. rolled her eyes. "It won't change who you are, no matter what you call yourself." She moved her extended hand a bit, for emphasis. "Besides which, you're missing the point."

"The point?"

"The scratches are still there."

"Ah, yes?" Before she'd pointed the injury out, he hadn't even noticed; it was that tiny. He was used to getting much more serious injuries on a regular basis, and he was pretty sure that C.C. was used to some roughing it, herself. "Did you want a bandage?" he asked, trying to be sympathetic, but mystified as to why she'd gone through all the trouble and danger of sneaking into the palace to see him, when bandages were easily available almost everywhere.

"You really don't understand, do you?" she asked in exasperation. She shook her head sadly. "You're nothing like Lelouch."

Zero winced. The words stung with the bitter implication that he was poorly suited to the one task that Lelouch had left him, but unlike his predecessor, he'd never been that good a liar. "You're right. I can't match up to him—his strategies, his way with words, his critical analysis, and plans and counter plans for every contingency." _Lelouch was the person who made Zero great; I'm just a fraud, taking credit for the situation he set up._ "I can wear the mask, but..."

"Suzaku—"

"Zero," he insisted again.

"Whoever," she said, shaking her head, "I'm sure you're aware that my Code should have healed this cut long before now. Not only am I not healing, but I can't manifest any portion of the Code's power, not even the sigil."

"What?" he asked, alarmed now that the potential seriousness of the situation had begun to seep into his chronically sleep deprived mind. _I should have realized from the start that C.C. wouldn't have come all this way to make a social call on a dead man._ "But how could the Code suddenly stop working?"

"It should only happen if the Code is no longer mine—if it were transferred to someone else."

Zero frowned deeply, not liking the sound of that at all. "How exactly could that sort of transfer happen?"

"Just as the power of Geass can be received by accepting a Contract with a Code holder, the original Code itself can also be transferred, if it is accepted by someone with a sufficiently developed Geass. Once the Code is transferred, the old holder becomes once more mortal, and the new holder becomes immortal and capable of granting Geass."

"But if that's the case, surely you didn't offer your Code to anyone!"

C.C. turned away from him. "...Not since that day."

"_What_ day?" Zero pressed, beginning to feel very angry with her. _We worked so hard for this new world, and then you endanger it like this..._

C.C. sighed heavily. "The day of Zero Requiem, I asked Lelouch if he truly wanted to die," she admitted grudgingly. "I offered him my Code, then. But he refused it, saying that he didn't belong in this world."

"Oh," Zero murmured, his anger cooling just as rapidly as it had risen. He suddenly found himself much fonder of the green haired woman. "You mean, you tried to—to save him from dying."

"Who says I was saving him?" C.C. asked with a disdainful toss of her hair. "Perhaps I simply wanted to leave this boring immortal life, myself. But Lelouch said that he wanted to make a peaceful world, and a peaceful world by definition doesn't have a Demon Emperor in it." She looked sadly down at her injured fingers. "I felt his rejection."

"...Are you sure?" he asked, some foolish, guilty part of him hoping for an answer he didn't deserve.

She looked at him gravely a moment before nodding. "Yes, I am certain, and my healing was accelerated even after I made the offer. You remember: I was cut on your sword that morning and the wound healed almost instantly. Not only that, but a transfer requires contact. Since I didn't once touch Lelouch after I got that cut, I don't understand how this could be." Again, she looked at her injured fingers, this time in mild wonder.

"Do you think this could be part of his plan?" Zero hesitantly suggested, and C.C. tilted her head toward him, waiting for him to continue. "Lelouch wiped out the Geass Order because he considered their powers to be too dangerous. Do you think, as a final gesture, that he somehow did something to wipe out Codes, as well?"

C.C. frowned and shook her head. "I considered whether Lelouch might be the cause earlier, but even if it were possible for him to do such a thing, he would have had to at least ask me for more information. He was always very meticulous about his plans, after all, and the circumstances should only have made him especially so, because he'd have no hope of correcting things himself, if something went wrong. Besides which, he was aware of my willingness to give up my Code, so Lelouch would have had no reason to conceal such a plan from me."

C.C. frowned. "Unless...this is something he came up with, after the fact."

Zero frowned. "After the fact?"

"Lelouch should have been subsumed by the World of C completely, after his death. If he could somehow do something from there..." She frowned. "But if he joined with the unconscious amalgamation of humanity, he shouldn't have had the individuality to enact any changes, anymore. At least, no one ever has. Besides which, the only thing Lelouch wanted at the end was to be at peace, so there would be no reason for him to struggle further, after his death."

"Do you think it could have happened because things in the World of C changed, then? I mean, the whole idea of Zero Requiem was that the world would be united in the desire for peace. Lelouch told me that a Geass is a type of wish, so maybe if humanity's unfulfilled wishes were granted, then Code and Geass wouldn't exist anymore, because there would be no need."

"Interesting." C.C. smiled mischievously. "I know an easy way to test that theory."

"How?"

She stretched her hand out, fingers curling slightly in a beckoning motion. "Lend me your sword."

Zero hesitated a moment, a tiny prickle of unease piercing his stomach, before he squared his shoulders and complied, the weight of guilt making the weapon seem heavier in his hand than it should.

_I killed Lelouch with this sword._

Zero tried very hard, mostly unsuccessfully, not to feel a bit ill. Before he could sink any deeper into his grief and horror, though, C.C. grabbed the blade from his hands. She smiled again, lazily. "Hold still, now." A wickedly sharpened edge was suddenly rushing at him.

Zero blinked at her from several feet away, with no memory of how he'd gotten there. "Hey!" he shouted, belatedly, when he realized what had just happened. "Were you trying to kill me with that thing?!"

"You killed Lelouch with it," C.C. responded flatly.

Zero winced. _Does she blame me for his death, after all?_

"But I knew I wouldn't be able to do it," she continued, walking over to offer the sword back to him, hilt first. "Schneizel still obeys Zero, doesn't he? So Lelouch's Geass is still active. It doesn't make sense that the Code that spawned it would be gone, if the Geass itself is still in effect."

"If you knew about Schneizel, then you didn't have to swing the sword at me!" Zero grumbled, taking it back and immediately sheathing the weapon with a small shudder, more upset that she'd dredged up memories of the last time the blade had been used, rather than the fact that she'd just tried to run him through. It was lucky that he'd long ago given up worrying about the unhealthy nature of his priorities.

"No, I didn't have to," C.C. finally answered in a lazy drawl, her eyes sparkling, "but it was an entertaining demonstration."

Zero narrowed his own eyes at her. "...Witch."

C.C. smirked back at him. "I take it back. You are at least a little like Lelouch."

Zero shifted uncomfortably at that, unsure whether it was meant to be a complement or an insult. C.C. was sometimes difficult to figure out. "But that still doesn't explain what happened to your Code."

C.C. sighed, staring down at the carpet and idly twirling a lock of hair around her index finger. "It's possible that I could have given it to someone without remembering."

"But how could you not remember doing something like—"

She held up her hand to forestall him. "Charles had a Geass that could alter memories. While a Geass wouldn't have affected me while I still had my Code, once it was transferred, it is possible that I could have been made to forget doing so."

"So, you think that there might be some Geass user who survived the destruction of the Geass Order?"

"...Even if that's true, Geass manifests differently in everyone. Charles was the only one who ever had the ability to alter memories."

Zero felt a horrible, sinking feeling in his stomach. "You're not saying that—" Zero shook his head. "But that's impossible! He died!"

"We thought so, but can anyone completely understand what happens in the World of C? It's possible that Charles found a way to return and took action as soon as Lelouch was gone."

"No, that can't be. We worked so hard, sacrificed so much! We can't let anyone interfere with this peace!" Zero hissed, fury rising up in him once more.

_Lelouch, I won't allow anyone to spit on your sacrifice!_

"Calm down," C.C. admonished him. "We need to think this through. Even if Charles could somehow return with his Geass—well, the memory of his trading it away for V.V.'s Code may not be trustworthy, either—that still doesn't explain how he would have gotten my Code in the first place. The only one I would have willingly given it to was Lelouch. If it was forcefully taken, then why leave me alive, afterward?"

Zero frowned in concentration, thinking hard. "What if someone were trying to keep the transfer secret for as long as possible? Maybe whoever it was even impersonated Lelouch in order to get it and then erased your memories?"

"Impersonated Lelouch?" She shook her head. "I've lived for centuries and never met another man like him. No, copying him perfectly enough to fool me is even less likely than a delayed transfer."

"Delayed transfer?"

C.C. was silent for a long minute, her expression uncharacteristically brittle. "I did offer it to him. I'm sure he rejected it, but...when he died..."

"When he died, what?" Zero pressed, a tiny jolt of something that felt almost like excitement shooting through him.

"I was alone...thinking, not watching the broadcast, so I can only estimate the timing, but at around the same point Lelouch died, I felt something strange. It wasn't like what I remember from when my previous Contractee died, not so long ago. But then, Lelouch had always possessed a particularly strong Geass, so I thought that was the reason."

Zero stared at her, and for the first time since Zero Requiem, something hopeful and expectant stirred in his mind. "But you're saying, maybe it wasn't that. Maybe..."

C.C. looked at him with warning eyes. "Unsubstantiated hope is often the shortest path to misery. ...Still, since I've never passed on my Code before, I can't say what it should have felt like, or if what I felt could possibly have been a Code transference."

"You're saying he could still be alive, then!" His heart beat sped up along with his renewed hope.

"This naïve thinking is exactly why I didn't want to mention it to you in the first place," C.C. admonished, looking at him with obvious disappointment. "No matter how nice it would be to believe that Lelouch has it, a Code transference, just like a Geass Contract, requires contact. I've certainly never heard of a case of delayed transference before, and I was miles from the procession that morning, so it just doesn't make sense that Lelouch could have inherited my Code."

The pessimistic statement dampened Zero's optimism, but not his irrationality. "But right now this strange feeling you had is our only clue, right? We don't have any better explanation, so..."

"Do you enjoy building up your own hopes, so that they shatter harder?" she asked, but the deeply pitying look on her normally placid face was more of a warning than any words could be, a dash of freezing water that cruelly drowned out what had been the first flutter of life in his chest, since the day he had donned Zero's mask.

_Am I truly that foolish? _

He remembered how hopeful he'd been, when Euphy had made him her Knight, and their beautiful, naïve faith that they could make a better future. He still dreamed of the night he'd marched in to talk to his father, full of spirit and idealism, determined that he'd be able to convince the man to see reason and end the war. Now, he was falling victim to the same stupidity he'd experienced when he'd first seen Lelouch again, after all those lonely post-war years of separation.

_I thought I could have my friend back, as if the bright summer of long ago had never ended. But I ended things permanently, didn't I? With my own hands, I..._

The memory of Lelouch, laid out so cold and still, hit him like a blow straight to the heart.

_C.C. is right. How many times will I believe in the impossible before I stop setting myself up for more misery? I already know what sort of price the world demands for that sort of naiveté._

He'd paid the cost of it, far too often, until he had nothing left to pay with—not even his own name.

"Even if we assume that something unexpected happened, there's also the matter of Lelouch's lack of apparent healing," C.C. continued. "The viewing wasn't until the next morning. Although a Code's power is weakest when first inherited and grows stronger with time and use, I doubt it could have taken that long to heal a simple stab wound."

"...You're right," Zero acknowledged, feeling the temporarily restored life drain completely out of him. "It was nearly an entire day. I had the mortician lay him out in a clean set of robes—so it would have been impossible to see the wound—but if Lelouch had been breathing at the viewing, Nunnally and I surely would have..."

Zero hissed in a breath, as a sudden, painful thought occurred to him. "C.C., Lelouch...before his body was moved back to Britannia for the viewing, he was _embalmed_."

"I see," C.C. acknowledged flatly, apparently completely unperturbed by the remote possibility that such an act could be performed on someone not truly dead. "Then, his bodily fluids were almost entirely replaced with formaldehyde." She tilted her head to the side, thinking quietly in the same way Lelouch sometimes had, and her emotionless consideration of the situation sent an uncomfortable shiver through Zero. _How many burials have you experienced, C.C., that it's such a blasé issue for you?_

"It's possible the embalming could explain why he appeared dead," C.C. finally said. "Even if a new Code had been trying to revive him, with his veins completely filled with poison, he could have just prematurely died over and over again before the poison was completely cleared and he properly revived." Before Zero's own stupidity could get his hopes up again, though, C.C. added, "Or, the simpler, more likely explanation would be that Lelouch appeared dead because he actually was dead."

"Oh," Zero whispered, feeling his traitorous heart once more thoroughly pressed down by her cold logic. He tried, unsuccessfully, to feel grateful for that. _I would give so much, if only...but that's exactly why I can't trust my own wishful thinking, about this. _ "Then, you're saying we should just give up on this unlikely idea."

C.C. sighed. "How many feet under is he buried?"

"He's not," Zero replied, shaking his head. "Lelouch may have vetoed a separate Imperial Mausoleum for himself, but since Jeremiah was left in charge of the funeral preparations, he chose to follow the same burial procedures as for dead princes and princesses. At least, its the same way Euphy was buried—in a royal sepulcher, entombed in marble. Jeremiah even chose the same cemetery she was buried in, because Lelouch and I made sure it was among the few Britannian landmarks not damaged by the fighting."

"How accessible is his body, then?"

"Even if the guards stationed around the perimeter accidentally let someone through, Lelouch has got half a foot of marble on all sides of him. It should be impossible for anyone to desecrate his body; Jeremiah assured me."

"Then, _if_ Lelouch is alive, he's completely trapped."

"Yes, he's completely trapped," Zero echoed, with considerably more horror. He thought of the thick, intricately engraved marble lid of the coffin. "There's no way anyone inside could lift the lid alone." No matter how foolish it was, he looked at the immortal woman pleadingly, as if she had the power to grant him absolution for doing something incredibly stupid.

"I don't see why we should be responsible for his own foolish choices," she said, turning a cold shoulder toward Zero.

"But—"

"Still," C.C. continued overriding his interruption, "I've been buried before." Something cold and dark slid across her expression for just an instant, before dying. "Just in case, we'll check."


	3. Grave Robbing

While Pendragon was being rebuilt, the capital of Britannia had been temporarily shifted to the city of Angeles, so that Eden Villa, which had been the Imperial Palace before Pendragon was founded, could once more take on that honor. Of course, it hadn't hurt that Eden Villa had belonged for many years to Cornelia's maternal line, making it one of the few places no hostile nobles had been clamoring to reclaim, during those initial, difficult days of transition.

As prestigious as Eden Villa was, though, the best known landmark of Angeles, as well as the source of the city's name, actually lay just outside its official borders, where the largest royal graveyard on the continent could be found. The number of silently watching marble angels, merely from the bloody ascension feuds of Charles zi Britannia's youth, easily matched the population of a small village. The graveyard itself was like a city, and it was sometimes spoken of as such: the City of Angels.

It was in this city, whose living population was dwarfed by the dead, that Zero soon found himself. The air was cold and the sky dark as he and C.C. crept silently along, the chill, glistening dew of the unnaturally manicured grass soaking into his pants, as they hid from the guards in the deeper shadows of the graves. An hour of scraping moss and dirt from his knees had made him despair of more than just keeping Zero's uniform clean. Everything there was cool and motionless and slowly decaying, and now, skulking between painfully final dates and solemnly grieving epithets, Zero didn't know why he'd ever hoped to find anything alive in the City of Angels. It was a graveyard, after all.

Everything looked and smelled and felt like death, desperately covered over with deep marble etchings and unmoving stone. It only got more painfully quiet as they moved toward the center, where Lelouch was buried, and even Zero's own breathing felt out of place surrounded by the silent marble legion of angels, their cold elegance frozen as if in timeless eternity.

Free from any living distractions, for the first time, Zero began to worry about the wider circumstances. What would it look like, if they were discovered here? What would the people who were supposed to idolize Zero think, if he were caught skulking around a graveyard in the dead of night with the Demon Emperor's mysterious green haired courtier? What would _Nunnally_ think? It had been a long time since Zero had possessed enough pride to feel embarrassed about anything, but this, this irrational, pseudo desecration...

A shadow at the entrance to Lelouch's tomb moved, and suddenly his heart was in his throat again, wild fears and hopes rushing through him. Then the dark shape moved into the weak moonlight, and Zero could just make out his face.

"Jeremiah!" he exclaimed, much more loudly than he'd intended. The mask hid his wince.

_How am I going to explain this?_

"Lord Zero. Mistress C.C.," Jeremiah greeted them respectfully.

In that moment, Zero found a painful understanding of the uncomfortable position C.C. had been in earlier, not wanting to outright lie and yet not wanting to give false hope to someone so clearly devoted.

"What are you doing here?" Zero asked the noble, stalling for time while he tried to get his scrambling mind to think of a way out of this predicament.

"Guarding his tomb, of course. After we had so much trouble keeping the rabble away before the funeral, I wasn't about to leave this task to the regular cemetery guards," Jeremiah told them disdainfully. "It's harmless if Ms. Stadfeldt slips through to leave flowers," he added, nodding toward a bundle of white lilies by the sepulcher's entrance, "but I've already confiscated two crowbars and at least a dozen cans of spray paint these past few weeks! No matter that I've chastised them to take their duties seriously, I notice the guards just carelessly let you two slip through, as well."

"Well, yes. That is, I...we were just..."

Jeremiah nodded sagely. "I understand."

"You do?" Zero asked, surprised and somewhat incredulous.

"Of course. You want to pay your private respects. It's impossible to be honest in public, these days," he said, shaking his head mournfully.

"Oh, right. Of course that's it," he agreed weakly, thankful that the mask covered his guilty expression, as Jeremiah trustingly opened the heavy door and allowed them inside, pulling the door shut behind them to allow them the privacy to 'grieve'.

_Forgive me, Jeremiah, for disturbing our doomed master, one last time._

Some part of Zero hated himself for denying Lelouch peace, even in death, but no matter that the silence convinced him more and more thoroughly, with each passing ageless moment, that they were making a horrible mistake, some masochistic part of him refused to turn back. Besides which, he knew C.C. hadn't spent the better part of the past hour and a quarter crawling around on her hands and knees on the cold, wet ground (even dragging Cheese-kun along, against Zero's objections) just to turn around without completing their self-appointed mission. Consequently, they slowly fixed their eyes on the marble coffin in the center of the sepulcher.

A flashlight flicked on to illuminate their dark path, the only light aside from the small sliver coming in underneath the door, and Zero was ridiculously glad that C.C., at least, had come prepared.

_I never think ahead, do I, Lelouch? I'm always charging in, relying on others to do the thinking for me. _It was an easier that way, when he was filled with so much desperation and had so little trust in himself.

All too soon, Zero was faced with the carefully engraved lid of Lelouch's coffin. Taking a deep breath to fortify himself, he stepped forward onto the slightly raised platform the coffin rested on. Even though all he had to do was slide the lid to the side by shoving against the protruding edge, Zero found the effort almost too much for him, straining painfully just to move it a few millimeters, as every old injury he'd ever sustained protested.

_It feels like the "death" of the Knight of Zero is __**still**__ coming back to haunt me._

It didn't help that C.C. only stood back and smirked silently at him. "I thought you were supposed to be strong," she teased after half a minute had passed and he still hadn't moved it enough to allow a full view inside.

"I _am_ strong!" he objected, almost under his breath, mortified by the slow, grating scrape of marble on marble in what should have been a place of eternal peace, and just as terrified of being discovered by Jeremiah as he was annoyed to have what was one of his few actual skills criticized. "But this lid is solid marble! It must weigh a ton!" Grumbling even more quietly, he muttered a few not so complimentary words about Jeremiah's funeral decisions. In fact, finally given time to more carefully study the coffin, Zero could make out a few suspiciously rounded shapes amidst the extensive decorative engravings around the edges.

_Are those __**oranges**__?_

The lid moved another few millimeters.

"Still having trouble? You've been letting yourself go soft these past few weeks, haven't you?" C.C. taunted.

_If I weren't so busy pushing..._

Another few millimeters.

"The commentary...is...entirely...unnecessary," he bit out between labored breaths.

A few more minutes of gasping effort, and he finally got it almost fully open on one end. For a long couple of seconds, though, he only stood quietly, letting the silence speak for itself. His own labored breathing was the only sound he could hear, and some small flicker, bright and painfully stupid, hidden so deeply even his best logic hadn't reached it, eventually died. Finally, Zero worked up the courage to look down and see Lelouch's face, caught directly in the beam of C.C.'s flashlight.

He looked...awful. His skin, on the pale side even at the best of times, was now a uniformly ghastly bone white, except for the ugly bruises beneath his eyes, which had expanded outward in an unnatural purple corona so deep it looked almost black. His dark hair was practically pasted to his face, his lips flaking nearly colorless chapped skin, his normally refined bone structure jutting out into the truly skeletal in the harshly directed light.

It hurt, to see him like that.

_What did you think he would look like? _Zero asked himself angrily. _ Like he was only sleeping? You __**killed**__ him. He's been dead for weeks._

The smell, like rot and mildew and week old blood, suddenly made it through the mask far enough to hit him full force, and he took a step back in order to avoid immediately retching on the floor. However, just as the mask had shielded him from the immediate effects of the smell, it now trapped the scent against his nose, forcing a visceral truth on him that he hadn't been ready to face. That, combined with the bare, ugly sight of what he had reduced his once dearest friend to, finally drove home the full, brutal indignity of the sin he had committed.

"C.C., I think...I think I'm going to be sick," he whispered, fingers scrabbling desperately to wrench off the mask as the crawling horror in his body forced his stomach into spasms. That was when the corpse moved.

Actually, lurched would be more accurate. The corpse lurched for him, sitting up and reaching out with surprising quickness, and he screamed—or tried to scream, at any rate. He'd only just gotten the mask off and had still been gagging, so all that came out was a weak choking sound, before those bloodless, stone cold fingers closed over his mouth.

"Don't scream," the corpse said, and since there was no way he was biting into dead flesh, Zero did the only sensible thing he had left to do: he punched it.

A frail body collided heavily against the hard edge of a marble coffin lid, eliciting an uncomfortable crunch and a breathless sound of intense pain. "What...what was _that_ for, idiot?" it gasped out, turning pained violet eyes on him, as it cradled its injured ribs with one thin arm. The expression on its face was so familiar, mingled pain and anger and betrayal, that memory finally hit, and then it wasn't a corpse anymore: it was Lelouch.

"I—Lelouch, I—" His mind sputtered uselessly in circles, skin tingling as if an intense electric current were running across it. "I didn't mean to," he stuttered out lamely. Of course, he didn't know what he'd actually meant, either, with his emotions chasing so fitfully into each other: relief and such guilt but still so much happiness. _I can't take back all the horrible things I've done, but I would face up to any guilt, for the sake of having a chance to set things right._

He was pretty sure he was starting to hyperventilate a little, nauseous with joy and maybe a little horror, too, still, because really, Lelouch did look absolutely awful. Yet even weighed against that, the steady cadence of Lelouch's breathing was quite possibly the most beautiful thing Zero had ever witnessed.

All the things he'd ached to tell Lelouch during these past weeks of grief, all the regrets over what he should have said earlier, came rushing forward at once, but ironically, now that he had the opportunity, Zero couldn't find the right words. Luckily, C.C. decided to step forward while he simply continued to stare mutely, unable to form a coherent sentence past his intense and commingled emotions. Even if he had been able to think straight, though, it still would have been a surprise when Lelouch turned on her with a look of absolute fury.

"You!" he hissed, pointing an accusing finger at C.C., though his aim was slightly off, as he was no doubt mostly blinded by the flashlight pointed directly at him. "_You_ did this to me!"

"You think I'm the one responsible for this?" she asked, for once looking genuinely surprised and perhaps even a little bit hurt.

Lelouch paused, mid-rant, obviously not having expected that reaction. "But, it...it had to be you!" he insisted. "Who else would force a Code on me!"

"I offered it to you. I did not force anything."

"I...then you're saying—but that's impossible!" Lelouch objected, pained. "You're saying I did this to _myself_? But I _rejected_ it! I _rejected_ it!"

"I know you did."

For a moment, Lelouch looked relieved, before retreating to his familiar brooding pensiveness. "But then how?" he asked, his voice small and lost in a way Zero hadn't heard in a very, very long time, reminding him of the young prince who'd struggled so hard to care for a newly crippled and blinded little sister.

"That's what we were hoping you could tell us."

"You're saying you don't _know_?" he asked indignantly, the ghastly state of his skin only making his expression look worse. "C.C., I'm sure you tried to give it to me. I _know_ you did. Maybe after I rejected it, you came back later and forced it on me, and flooded my mind with memories at the same time, so I wouldn't be aware."

C.C. gave him a cross look. "So after all we've been through, you're going to doubt me, now?"

"I'm saying I want to know what exactly you did, the day I died!"

C.C. shot him another annoyed look, before grudgingly answering. "After I left your office, I went to speak to Suzaku, and by the time I came back looking for you, you were checking on the prisoners with Jeremiah at your back. Afterward, you were surrounded by even more people, as you left for the 'execution'. You know there's no way I could have had you isolated enough to attempt a Code transfer, with a simultaneous memory overload that would cause complete, but specific amnesia no less—if that's even possible in the first place."

"Then how do I know you didn't transfer the Code earlier, and you're just claiming I successfully rejected it?"

"Because I was injured," she told him, looking a little indignant herself. "When I was in Suzaku's room, he accidentally nicked my fingers, but the cut healed almost immediately."

At Lelouch's glace, Zero nodded, confirming, although he wasn't sure how well his friend could see the gesture, considering that C.C. still had the flashlight pointed toward Lelouch. "She's telling the truth about that, Lelouch."

Lelouch hesitated, giving C.C. a searching look. In response, she gave an annoyed huff, crossing her arms over her chest and thereby skewing the beam's angle, temporarily illuminating the silent faces of weeping marble angles engraved into the ceiling. _Maybe it's just the lighting, but that looks pretty creepy, Jeremiah._

"If I did this for my own pleasure, Lelouch, I wouldn't have left you trapped for weeks without hope for rescue. I don't have _that_ much patience in my amusements," C.C. insisted.

Lelouch nodded slowly. "But if you didn't do this, then how did it happen? Who could benefit from my failure to die?"

"Nunnally," both Zero and C.C. answered immediately.

He sighed, shaking his head. "I meant who had motive _and_ opportunity. As a prisoner, she was very carefully watched. The same goes for Kallen and any other members of the Black Knights who could potentially have figured things out. Besides the two of you and Jeremiah, there's no one with both the motive to keep me alive and any means to act, and C.C. makes a good point: if it were done out of misguided loyalty to me, why leave me to suffer, trapped in total darkness in a small box for so long, not knowing if I would ever get out?"

Lelouch frowned. "Unless this wasn't an act of mistaken but benign intent."

"What do you mean?"

"I woke up, as the coffin was being moved, I assume from the viewing to the burial site."

"You woke up?" Zero exclaimed. "They why didn't you do anything? Why did you let us bury you?!"

"_Think_, before you ask," Lelouch answered, unerringly meeting his shadow shrouded gaze with sharp violet eyes that were every bit as clever and determined as Zero remembered, made all the more piercing as they reflected the harsh light of the flashlight's beam. "I accepted my death, in order to make a better world. But what would have happened if word had gotten out that the Demon Emperor had 'risen from the grave'? It would have completely discredited Zero, and people would have been terrified afterward, never feeling certain if I were really gone, no matter how many times my death might be reported. So for the sake of a better world, I had to keep quiet and not disturb my own burial arrangements. For the same reason, I played dead when you first pushed the lid off, until you spoke, and I knew it was you."

"But playing dead like that after the viewing—you must have known you would soon be trapped."

"Yes," Lelouch whispered darkly. "I knew."

"And you were just going to resign yourself to eternal imprisonment?!"

"I had hoped there would be an opportunity for escape later, when no one would be around to see."

"But Lelouch, you _know_ the royal customs. You must have been aware you'd be entombed in marble. The lid is absolutely too heavy to lift, and even _I_ couldn't have gotten out if I'd been trapped inside without any handholds to try to slide it off. No matter how hard you pushed..."

"Believe me, I _was_ aware," Lelouch responded tightly, "but what would you have had me do? I couldn't let all the sacrifices made up to that point have been in vain!" Lelouch yelled, before bringing his arm back to cradle his ribs with a wince. "Perhaps this was all planned out by someone who would benefit from global conflict and so wanted the Demon Emperor alive; knowledge of my very existence will create strife." He paused for another moment, thinking. "Of course, it is also possible that someone hated me enough to attempt to consign me to eternal imprisonment."

"Lelouch," Zero began hesitantly, "seeing as you set out to make _everyone_ hate you, that second group includes almost the entire world."

"Yes, that does complicate matters," he acknowledged, resting one elbow on the edge of his coffin, so that he could prop his chin on his hand as he thought, movements still graceful even as he looked well more than half dead. "But there are very few who would know about the Code." Lelouch frowned, considering. "Perhaps if Jeremiah found out that I was responsible for my mother's destruction in the World of C, he could have—"

"No, Lelouch!" Zero objected immediately, scandalized on Jeremiah's behalf, no matter what his taste in carvings was like. "I won't stand here and listen to you dishonor someone who served you so loyally. You didn't _see_ what he was like at your funeral."

"You're right; I didn't," Lelouch conceded grudgingly. "But there must be _someone_ responsible."

"Right, and with your help, I'm sure we can figure it out."

Lelouch scowled. "Suzaku, I'm supposed to be dead. I can't just go around investigating things. Our number one priority should be making sure that I die for good before anyone else finds out about this."

Zero froze, his knees going weak, as if a knife had been plunged into the base of his spine. The thought of having to watch his best friend die _again_ was horrible enough that he didn't even bother correcting Lelouch for calling him by the wrong name. Instead, he objected desperately, making use of what little cleverness had rubbed off from their long association, "Lelouch, I know you left me in charge of being Zero, but I've never been a good detective. C.C. can't figure this out, either, so who else can we ask? Besides, since you're the one who was most affected, you might have vital information we haven't recognized yet. We _need_ your help!"

For a moment, Lelouch just looked torn, and Zero felt his heart clench frightfully, afraid that his plea would be rejected. In the end, though, the former emperor just sighed wearily, for a moment looking very much like the corpse he had almost remained. "...Very well. We will put the plan for my permanent death on hold—though only until we can get to the bottom of this," he said, waving one hand in a gesture that vaguely encompassed himself, before taking a deep breath and levering himself up out of the coffin. Zero noticed with an uncomfortable pang that Lelouch winced sharply again as he put weight on the side that had impacted against the coffin lid.

_He probably cracked a rib or two, when I punched him and he collided that thing._

It was yet another unnecessary injury to feel guilty over, and Zero wondered when he would ever be able to stop hurting people. Trapped in his own tormented thoughts, he could only stand paralyzed as C.C. went over to help Lelouch straighten, sweeping the flashlight casually over the most hated man in the world. "You shouldn't push a new Code so hard like this, Lelouch. Like a Geass, it takes time to develop to full power. If you had held your Geass for longer before taking the Code, you would be in a better position, but as it is... You were stabbed, then embalmed. You're dehydrated and starving. Did that coffin even allow enough oxygen in?"

Lelouch snorted bitterly. "No. I felt—I always felt like I was on the edge of passing out."

"On top of that, you've bled to death again recently, haven't you?" she asked, pointing the flashlight directly at a dark stain around his throat. He just nodded, tiredly, agreeing so easily to something so horrible that Zero felt his throat clench up.

"I just wanted it to be over. I had hoped it would be over," Lelouch whispered, leaning against the coffin and closing his eyes for a moment, as if he were very weary, before straightening to continue, "but for Nunnally's sake, I can't afford to leave any loose ends that will disturb our hard won peace."

Not wanting to look at Lelouch's unhappy expression and ashamed that things had gone wrong so quickly on what should have been his watch, Zero ducked his head, as if looking away from his problems could make them disappear.

"Don't!" Lelouch commanded, his voice suddenly desperate.

"What?"

"Don't look inside the coffin!"

It wasn't deliberate. The thing was, when someone said not to look, well, it was just natural for him to look to see what it was that he wasn't supposed to look at.

Now that Lelouch was out of the coffin, it was clear in the harsh glare of the flashlight that what had once been a white silk lining was absolutely soaked in blood, in various stages of drying. Resting on the bottom of the coffin liner were curved, translucent films of bloody...something, two bumpy convex disks, a bit larger than contacts, a couple of pieces of wire, and what that looked suspiciously like desiccating meat.

"What—what _is_ that?"

Lelouch grimaced, shaking his head and burying his face in his hand. "I _told_ you not to look."

"But saying that just makes people want to look before they even think about it!" he objected. "And you didn't answer my question!"

Fortunately for both their tempers, C.C. seemed content to oblige, even as Lelouch fumed silently for a moment over being disobeyed. "The dead are unable to hold their eyes closed on their own, so holders are inserted beneath the eyelids to keep them shut. Likewise, the mouth is wired shut, for presentation at the funeral," she told him emotionlessly.

Zero swallowed, looking at Lelouch and feeling his eyes and teeth ache in sympathy. "And the—are those _fingernails_?"

Lelouch shifted his weight and looked distinctly uncomfortable, wrapping his arms around his middle and turning his face away slightly, refusing to meet Zero's gaze, even though he obviously couldn't see his eyes when C.C. had the flashlight pointed directly away from Zero. "I—I wanted to get out. I was trapped for...I don't know how long. Even when I dug the holders out of my eyes, it was still completely dark. I had nothing but my own two hands, so I tried to—but of course I couldn't claw through marble."

"I thought I would be trapped forever," Lelouch whispered, and the quiet horror on his face destroyed any doubt, if it had ever existed in the first place, that he might possibly have planned this himself.

_Lelouch always strategizes to the minutest detail. He would never have left himself in such a situation, if he had any inkling this could happen._

Part of Zero very much didn't want to ask and yet part of him felt that he fully deserved to suffer through the answer: "Lelouch, then what about that other..." He gestured toward the coffin.

"I couldn't be _sure_ it wasn't just a case of miraculous physical recovery, so...I bit off my own tongue." At Zero's horrified silence, he elaborated, "It grew back, of course. That's why it was such a good test. It's possible to die of blood loss from biting off your own tongue, but it's also undeniable proof of having a Code if it grows back, since it's not normally possible for humans to regenerate like that."

Zero suddenly wished he were wearing the mask again, because Lelouch would no doubt take extreme offense at his disgusted grimace, if the flashlight happened to reveal it. No matter Lelouch's pride in his own cleverness, though, it didn't stop his plans from making Zero feel absolutely sick sometimes. _It's an embarrassment if you do something emotional like trying to claw your way out, but if your logic tells you to do something repugnant like biting off your own tongue, you're fine with it? _Zero shuddered with dread as he tried with all his will to get the image of the bottom of the coffin out of his mind.

"Lelouch, I don't know if I'm going to be able to eat, ever again," he complained, trying, for the second time that night, not to be ill.

"Until you came to rescue me, I didn't know if _I_ would ever be able to eat again," Lelouch countered. "Well, unless I wanted to—never mind," he cut himself off, with a grimace. "Let's not even think about that. How did you know to come rescue me, anyway?"

"Arthur scratched me when I went to Suzaku's 'grave' to collect him," C.C. answered. "Since I was going to drop him off with his rightful owner, anyway, I was already on my way when I noticed that the cuts hadn't healed."

"Then it _is_ your Code, C.C.!" he shouted, eyes narrowed. "You did—"

"Just because it's my Code doesn't mean I know how it happened," C.C. cut him off tonelessly.

"Wait," Zero whispered, mind still several sentences back, trying to process something. "You were bringing Arthur to me?" He had a sinking feeling about that vibrating case C.C. had left in his room, when they left to go check Lelouch's grave.

"Don't worry," C.C. said, smiling. "I made sure the case was open when we left."

"Then he's just running loose in my rooms, unsupervised, with no food or water? Don't you know how Arthur gets, when he's bored and hungry?" He took a moment to let the true horror sink in. "He's going to shred everything!"

C.C. smiled in obvious delight. "Won't that be interesting?"


	4. Vital Task

They would have gotten back faster if they hadn't had a slight delay, trying to explain to an ecstatic but very confused Jeremiah exactly why a dead Emperor was still walking around. After obtaining his assurance of absolute secrecy, though, as well as his aid distracting the guards of the royal cemetery, they had quickly made their escape, only to be forced to confront the next hurdle: convincing Lelouch to come back to the palace.

At first, he had been adamantly against it, insisting that it was the worst location possible, given the high likelihood of his being recognized. However, C.C. had cleverly pointed out that Lelouch would be recognized almost anywhere, and that the very safest place was somewhere well guarded, where no one would dare intrude. Because Empress Nunnally herself had declared Zero's privacy to be of highest importance, his rooms were both very well guarded and very, very private. The only points of risk were the trips in and out, and the entire rest of the time Lelouch would be completely safe in Zero's rooms, conveniently on hand to help with the investigation.

The only problem, then, had been getting in.

"How did you sneak in to see me, C.C.?" Zero asked her.

"Oh, I still had an old costume."

"What?"

"A Zero uniform. I keep it stuffed inside Cheese-kun. Since I walked in as Zero, no one objected."

"You impersonated me?" he asked, not sure he was so terribly thrilled about that.

"I used to do it for Lelouch, and in the end, you're just impersonating him," C.C. responded, dismissively. Zero thought he would have been insulted, if she hadn't stated it as matter-of-factly as any other truth. "Then I just stuffed the costume back inside Cheese-kun before I knocked on your door. But there's no need for me to go through that again. After all, Zero can dismiss the guards around his personal rooms, and Schneizel can be commanded to distract the rest, just as we did so that I could sneak back out, earlier tonight."

"But that's too risky, C.C.!" Lelouch objected. "If anyone were to see me—"

"That's why _you'll_ be wearing this," she said, opening a hidden flap on Cheese-kun and beginning to carefully wiggle Zero's mask out, leaving Cheese-kun's head oddly deflated.

_Headless Cheese-kun_, his mind supplied. It seemed it was a night for the macabre.

"Here," C.C. said, holding out the full costume to Lelouch. The former emperor, however, appeared reluctant to accept it.

"Even so, C.C., if the guards see me, they're bound to be suspicious that Zero is coming inside the perimeter a second time, without having seen him leave in between."

"That's why we'll have Schneizel rearrange the guards once one of you has passed, so the same individual won't have the opportunity to see both of you coming in."

"And what about you?" Lelouch queried.

"Between Zero dismissing his personal guards for the night and Schneizel running interference, I shouldn't have a problem getting in. Besides which, even though I've been seen associating with you by a few people, it was never public knowledge that I was an important co-conspirator of yours. After your death, people were happy to throw all the blame on you and practically forget about everyone else."

"Even if I were seen, Zero or Schneizel could just smooth things over, and people would soon forget about it." C.C. shrugged. "If you're that worried, then Zero can just have Sayoko bring a spare costume back out to me in the morning after the guard shift change, and I can sneak in as Zero then."

"...No, that won't be necessary," Lelouch finally decided. "As you've said, it's unlikely that you'll be seen, and even if you are, the fallout shouldn't be too bad."

C.C. held the costume out to him again, but instead of taking it immediately, Lelouch instead continued to stare at it, frowning.

"What is it, Lelouch? You still don't like my plan?"

"It's not that. It's just..."

"What?"

"It's wrinkled, because you've kept it stuffed inside Cheese-kun. When was the last time you washed it, for that matter?" he asked, royal fastidiousness returning in full force. "Is it really a good thing for the champion of justice to be seen walking around in soiled clothes?"

While he was trying to be patient, by that point, Zero was pretty desperate to get back to his suite before Arthur entirely finished shredding it. "Look, it's half past three in the morning. I don't think anyone cares about wrinkles, even if they could see them in the low light." In fact, he himself had difficulty making out exactly what Lelouch was complaining about through the mask. C.C. nodded, backing him up.

Sighing against their united front, Lelouch finally acquiesced and took the clothes, but when he looked down to begin unfastening the robes he'd been buried in, his eyes narrowed.

"Purple?" Lelouch looked so absolutely, mortally offended by the color that Zero barely resisted pulling out one of Milly's old jibes about the ridiculous costumes she used to put him in ("they match your eyes"), though only because Zero could feel Arthur shredding maniacally through his chairs, with every moment they delayed.

_How will I explain the damage to Sayoko?_

"Look, Lelouch," Zero began tensely, "Jeremiah had enough trouble getting you to the mortician without running afoul of the mobs. He didn't dare leave your body unguarded to go get a spare set of imperial robes from the royal tailor, so I dashed off to your private rooms to grab the first clean thing I could find."

"You could have left me in what I was wearing!"

"Lelouch, those clothes were stabbed through and soaked in blood!"

"So? I'm sure people would have enjoyed the spectacle," he answered, with the usual sardonic twist of his lips.

Zero could hardly believe what he was hearing and suspected the fury showed through in his body language, despite his best efforts. "How could you expect us to treat you so disrespectfully? Are you even thinking of how _Nunnally_ would have felt at the viewing?"

Lelouch at least had the decency to look abashed, then.

"Look, I'm sorry you don't like the color, Lelouch, but I just needed something clean. These robes looked brand new."

"That's because I've _deliberately_ never worn them," he retorted. "That imbecile of a royal tailor insisted on sending me robes in unwanted colors, entirely on his own initiative!"

Zero sighed. _Why do you always needlessly overcomplicate everything?_

He wondered if he'd even have a toothbrush left, at this rate.

"What exactly is so wrong with purple, Lelouch?" he asked, still mystified by the inner workings of his friend's mind. "You wore purple all the time as Zero."

"That's exactly my point! It's supposed to be the dark knight of justice against the demonic white emperor—the dramatic juxtaposition of two opposites! The imagery is not the same, if we're both wearing the same color!"

Zero was glad when C.C. snorted in amusement, sparing him Lelouch's wrath when he failed to dredge up the proper appreciation for such earth shattering nuances of the color wheel.

"I'd almost forgotten how melodramatic you can be, Lelouch," C.C. told him with a smirk.

Lelouch shot her a furious glare. "I'm perfectly serious."

"I know," she managed to get out, past an apparently uncontrollable smirk. "That's exactly what makes it so funny, Drama Emperor."

Lelouch scowled in response.

"Oh, you actually planned it as black versus white, didn't you?" C.C. asked in sudden realization. "Still trying to make up for the fact that you never got to beat the white king at chess?"

"You know what, C.C.? Maybe you _should_ wait until morning to sneak in, after all," Lelouch told her, annoyance clear in his sharp movements as he hastily began changing, only growing more angry as C.C. was very slow to turn around and give him any privacy. Meanwhile, Zero was only growing more anxious, groaning as another terrible thought occurred to him.

_The plants! Arthur is going to destroy all the plants that Sayoko brought in!_

Flipping open his phone in dismay, he quickly called Schneizel to fill him in on the plan (minus any mentions of Lelouch, of course), feeling extremely glad that the mask's integrated voice modulator concealed most of the strain in his voice. Hearing the sleepy tone of acknowledgement on the other side, Zero might almost have felt bad about disturbing the man's sleep for the second time that night, if he weren't still a little aggravated that Schneizel had apparently had Kannon secretly spying on him for _months_, before finally breaking up his potential reconciliation with Lelouch at Kururugi Shrine. Besides which, they were all servants of necessity, now.

_This falls under the definition of necessity too, right?_

"And after you take care of the guard arrangements, Schneizel, I have one more vital task for you."

"I shall do whatever you ask of me, Lord Zero," Schneizel replied predictably, even if he still sounded halfway asleep. Zero was suddenly very glad that the Geass would prevent him from questioning an order.

"Yes, well, as for this vital task, I need you to—to get me cat food."

The sudden, extremely amused snort C.C. made certainly didn't help Zero feel any prouder of himself, but she had no idea of what sort of hell he would be facing if he went in there without a peace offering.

"Just, well, leave it at my door, okay? And if you happen to notice anything unusual tonight, just forget about it. For that matter, forget about the catfood too, after you've brought it."

"Yes, Lord Zero."

He was just about to put his phone away when another desperate thought occurred to him, "And Schneizel?"

"Yes, Lord Zero?"

"Make sure you don't get turkey flavor. Try for seafood, if you can."

"Yes, Lord Zero."

He clicked his phone shut to the sound of C.C.'s derisive chortles. "Vital task, Lord Zero?" she asked when he looked up at her, almost deadpan again but for the traitorous twitching at the corners of her mouth.

"You know what? Maybe you should sneak in tonight, after all, C.C., so _you_ can go into the room, first."

As it happened, though, the witch took long enough sneaking in (perhaps deliberately) that both Zeroes made it to the well fortified interior suite before her. Luckily, it appeared that Schneizel had actually beaten them all to the door, because a case of the fancy sort of catfood, in various seafood varieties, had been sitting there before either Zero or Lelouch had arrived.

If he hadn't still been so overwhelmingly grateful to have Lelouch back, the current Zero would probably have felt more than a little insulted when the former emperor laughed at him for cautiously sliding an open can of cat food through the barely cracked door, before daring to peek inside. Even if they had been received in another lifetime, Zero still remembered the bites inflicted by an annoyed and hungry Arthur, and it was only when the feline appeared fully appeased that he finally stepped inside.

Arthur studied the two Zeros as he finished off the last of his meal, before unerringly walking over to rub on the wrinkled looking one, while the other simply surveyed the damage to the front room of his private suite in silent horror. There was dirt everywhere. Little bits and pieces of roots, leaves and stems were strewn haphazardly over the floor, along with the contents of most of his shelves. The wooden legs of the chairs in the living area had been completely stripped of varnish, their plush backing sliced clean through so that the cloth hung down around them in elaborate kilts, while their stuffing flowed down onto the floor in almost festive streamers of destruction.

Hands clenching, Zero rushed to the door of his bedroom, wrenching it open and frantically checking on the safety of the contents of a small box of reminders, before carefully putting them back in their hiding place and rejoining Lelouch in the living room, where Arthur was now happily vibrating at the former emperor's feet, sniffing at the mask Lelouch was holding protectively in one hand.

Lelouch's still nearly bloodless lips quirked in soft, bitter amusement. "You've always liked this mask a little too much, haven't you?" he scolded the feline, though for the life of him, Zero couldn't figure out why.

"When did Arthur ever see your Zero costume?"

Lelouch looked up at him, startled, and now in the better light, Zero could see dried flakes of something reddish brown caught in his hair. This time, he knew better than to ask.

Lelouch gave a long suffering sigh. "It was back at Ashford Academy, when you were letting Arthur hang around the Club House. He actually made off with my mask once, and I had to chase him all over campus to get it back."

"Oh." A memory of happier moments came to him. "Hey, was it that time—"

"That Milly offered a kiss from a Student Council member as a reward? Yes."

Pushing away the darker undertones of that piece of history, Zero let himself get caught in the memory of a day when they had still been students and best friends, with Nunnally at their sides, radiating warmth and innocence. Back then, he'd been able to save Lelouch from falling off the roof with no more than the strength of his own arms. It was the sort of thing he'd hoped to spend his life doing: helping people. _How is it that I just ended up killing them instead?_

"Say, Lelouch. Do you ever think...what if things had gone differently? What if we had been working together from the start?"

The smile Lelouch gave him was small and soft and very, very sad, the sort of expression he had normally reserved for his little sister, when she'd been unable to see it. "What if?" he mused, voice gentle. "You always did like to torture yourself with what could have been, rather than what is," Lelouch admonished, but there was no bite to his words. "Is it so important, exactly when something started, as long as we ended up working together at the end?"

_It's important if I wouldn't have had to kill my best friend._

He sighed. "I know what you're trying to tell me, Lelouch. It's futile, thinking of what can't be, anymore, but..."

_It's hard not to think of the past, of other paths, when there are so many things I wish I could have done differently._

"Suzaku, you need to stop tormenting yourself."

"It's just Zero, now," he corrected. "Suzaku is dead."

"Of course. Zero," Lelouch echoed, and somehow it ached, to have even the fragile connection of a name severed.

_It was familiar, the way you said it, with a perfect Japanese accent, as if you always accepted the part of me Britannia was so eager to crush out. But that life is dead now._

Lelouch startled him out of his thoughts by tapping on his mask. "You can take it off now, you know. I know better than anyone that it can get stuffy after a few hours."

"It's...okay?" he asked. "Even if C.C. comes in and sees it off?"

"Of course." Lelouch gave him an odd look. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Zero breathed a sigh of relief. It was a small thing, to have absolution for the choice he'd made earlier, but it felt so good not to have to second guess himself about something, to know that Lelouch really did care enough for others to suspend even Zero's punishment.

Zero reached up, practiced fingers finding the latching mechanism. The world was brighter, without the mask, and when he looked at Lelouch's face, now that they were inside, in proper lighting...

"I'd forgotten." _I would drive myself crazy, wondering whether I was just misremembering the little details, painting the past brighter than it really was, or whether you really would speak to Nunnally that gently, or smile at the Student Council that much, or even if your eyes were truly that color._

The deep, vivid violet seemed almost unnatural in his thin, ghostly white face, the only part of him that actually looked fully alive.

"Hmm?"

"Your eyes. The contacts were really close, but your full Geass was so strong, I guess they had to be a bit darker to prevent the power from leaking out."

Lelouch's left hand darted up to trace the lid just below his left eye, before falling back. "Yes. It's a relief, not to have to wear them anymore. The lenses had to be quite thick, at the end."

"Mrroooow!"

Zero tensed in dread at the sound of Arthur's meow, while Lelouch only cocked his head to the side curiously, turning to look at the feline. Now that Zero had his mask off, Arthur had apparently fully recognized his familiar chomping post. "Now, Arthur, it wasn't my fault C.C. locked you up in her carrying case all day, and I brought you dinner, didn't—aiiiii!" The last came out as an aborted wail, as Arthur bit deeply into his hand. Zero pulled his fingers back as soon as he felt a little give in the small, furry menace's jaw, glad that the glove of his costume had probably prevented the feline from breaking the skin. Probably.

Lelouch, obviously still trying to live up to his reputation as Demon Emperor, merely smirked at Zero's ill fortune. "Apparently, Arthur thinks he didn't get quite enough," Lelouch said, giving the cat a consoling pat on the head. "Speaking of dinner, I don't suppose you have any human food here?" he asked, looking around. Lelouch paused a moment. "Actually, is this tuna flavor really—"

It was about the time that he started critically examining the can's label that Zero realized it had been more than three weeks since Lelouch had last had a meal. "Please don't eat that," he interjected in alarm, not sure whether Lelouch was joking and not willing to test Arthur's jealousy to find out. He quickly rescued the can from almost alarmingly thin fingers and opened it smoothly, dumping it out on what had once been a serviceable place mat before Arthur got to it. Zero spared one more anxious glance at the Demon Cat, before hesitantly turning his back to head deeper into the suite.

"There's a small refrigerator in the kitchenette that Sayoko keeps putting food in," Zero assured, looking back to make sure Lelouch was following, before hastily making his way to the promised appliance, past the detritus of ruined table cloths and shredded envelopes. Actually, he'd been wondering where he'd left that decorative seal Nunnally had given Zero...

"Here. Look, there's plenty," he announced, pulling open the door to display the remains of the last week's barely touched meals. Normally never a heavy eater, Lelouch seemed only too happy to grab an entire jug of water and several of the dishes, before ensconcing himself at the (only slightly scratched) table in the dining room for a long overdue break to his fast.

_It's amazing that he can eat so quickly and still be so neat about it._

At the rate he was consuming food, Lelouch might also be able to single handedly reassure Sayoko of her cooking skills, something Zero would be very grateful for. She had recently been mistakenly interpreting his complete lack of appetite as a sign that there was something off about the taste of the food she was preparing, despite his profuse protests to the contrary.

Lelouch looked up at him half-way through the second dish, quickly finishing the bite he'd been chewing before speaking. "Trying to improve the shredded décor with a life sized human statue?" he asked with a quirk of an eyebrow.

"Huh?" Intelligent conversation was almost beyond Zero at that point. The small part of his mind which wasn't fascinated with watching Lelouch eat, was instead lost in memories of three children lying in a patch of enormous sunflowers, making a game of identifying the warbling and chirping of various meadow birds. _Nunnally was always the best at it, and that's why you liked that game so much, right, Lelouch? Because you loved seeing her happy._

"You're just standing there. Aren't you going to get some food for yourself, or at least sit down?" Lelouch asked.

"Oh. Um..." He'd actually been quite content drawing sustenance solely from those tiny remembered pockets of joy. _What am I thinking, letting myself get distracted like this? As Zero, I should be worried about who's responsible for this mysterious Code transference, not blissfully drifting away into the past._ No matter how he told himself to focus, though, it was impossible to convince himself he wanted to be dutiful just then—especially when that duty would lead inevitably toward Lelouch's threat of a repeat death.

"Well, alternatively, I guess you can just stand there staring at me for the rest of the night," Lelouch suggested with dry humor.

It finally caught up to Zero how this must look from the outside. "Oh. Right. Sorry. I didn't mean to stare," he lied, because even though he thought that watching a supposedly dead man chew and blink and breathe was easily the most riveting thing in the world, it didn't seem like a particularly good idea for his much battered dignity to actually admit that aloud. Reluctantly, Zero went to pull a plate out of the refrigerator for himself, if only to give the illusion that he was interested in anything beyond the fact that the friend he'd killed with his own hands had been miraculously (temporarily) restored to him.

It wasn't until he sat down that Zero noticed he'd pulled out a plate of delicately sliced beef and mashed potatoes, absolutely covered in gravy.

_Arthur always loved it when Sayoko made this._

He hoped the feline was still busy with the second can of cat food, or he would have a battle on his hands. Zero listened intently for sounds from the front room, his whole body tensing when he felt something brush against his leg under the table. He almost hoped it was Lelouch playing a trick on him, but when he peeked under the table, there was the dreaded beast himself.

"It seems you chose poorly," Lelouch said, a tiny smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. "I deliberately avoided that dish, knowing how crazy it drives Arthur."

The cat in question was currently circling like a hungry shark, raised tail as dangerous a warning as any fin. "Don't just sit there laughing at me, Lelouch," he pleaded. "You were always better with cats. What am I supposed to do?"

"Honestly? You're completely outmatched here. If you want to have any furniture left standing by the time the sun rises, better just surrender half the food and hope that's enough to appease him."

Zero considered for only a fraction of a second before deciding to take the suggestion, hoping he'd have time to get out a second dish and transfer some food to it before Arthur entirely shredded his leg. Thankfully, he'd always been able to move quickly when he wanted to, so his ankles had only suffered a few minor puncture marks before the dish was on the floor and Arthur was once more purring happily.

Zero breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he sat back down at the table.

"Excellent job, Zero," Lelouch said, gentle amusement gleaming in his violet eyes. "One more world crisis averted."

He tried to suppress a wince at the reminder of another crisis he really should be more concerned about. "I still don't know how I'm going to explain to Sayoko about all this mess, though," he admitted, morosely looking around what had once been a relatively neat dining room. _What is she going to think of me when she sees this?_

"Tell her that C.C. is an absolute pig," Lelouch suggested lightly, between bites.

Zero frowned. "Where is C.C., anyway? It can't really take that long to sneak in, can it?"

"I rather think she's delaying, because she believes that I'll try to make her participate in cleaning duty."

"Oh, right." Actually, even given how hungry he must be, Zero was surprised that Lelouch hadn't started insisting that they clean up already. He normally couldn't stand the sight of anything lying around on the floor.

"I guess we'll have to take care of that after we eat."

"Why?" Lelouch asked. "It's been a long night. Surely Sayoko can handle it in the morning."

"But...you're really okay with waiting? You're not going to get all neurotic about it?"

Lelouch shook his head with a small smile. "I think you've misunderstood something. Although I'm generally an organized person, the real reason I didn't like seeing things on the floor was because I knew Nunnally _couldn't_—she'd end up rolling right into obstacles. Now that her eyes are open..."

Zero's eyes widened. _I can't believe I didn't realize that before._

"So, you really don't care about the mess now?"

"I didn't say I'm willing to live in a pig sty, so don't think this gives you a license to throw your dirty laundry all over ever available surface. However, I am willing to at least leave this mess till morning."

It was about then that four warm paws landed in Zero's lap.

"Arthur! Don't tell me you're after the rest!"

"Unlikely," Lelouch said, "given that he barely finished what you gave him. He's probably just being friendly."

As if to confirm the infallible nature of Lelouch's predictive ability, Arthur began rubbing against Zero, purring, even submitting himself to a chin scratch without biting.

_Could it be that you actually missed me?_ Zero thought, smiling as Arthur arched his back to meet stroking fingers. The next moment, Zero pulled his hand away. _What must __**this**__ look like from the outside? I promised to sacrifice everything for the world, and yet what have I been doing tonight except indulging my own wishes?_

"What is it?" Lelouch asked, frowning at him.

"I...I'm not supposed to be just sitting here enjoying myself, am I? I should be busy trying to track down anyone who has any knowledge of Codes."

"The dead of night is hardly the best time to start a delicate investigation," Lelouch pointed out.

"Still, you said I should sacrifice my happiness for the sake of the world, so..."

Lelouch blinked at him in confusion for a moment before scowling. "It's true that I don't want you to indulge your personal pleasures at the cost of your duty, but how does it help the world if you go out of your way to avoid any sort of joy? In other words, just pet the cat, you idiot," Lelouch said with an exasperated eye roll, as Arthur settled into Zero's lap.

_But the only way I can atone is by being diligent in my duties. Yet, if I'm diligent... _"You said this would be my punishment." He shuddered, thinking of how he'd killed the Demon Emperor the fist time. _Does being Zero mean I'm supposed to give up my best friend a second time?_

"Well, you certainly wouldn't have accepted a reward, would you?" Lelouch replied with dark sarcasm.

_But the difference between a reward and a punishment is in who really benefits. I've become the world's hero, yet instead of worrying about maintaining peace, I've only been thinking of myself. _He could feel Arthur softly rumbling his happiness, but Zero thought of the F.L.E.I.J.A. Memorial and knew he didn't deserve any of his own. "After the monstrous sins I've committed, what right do I have to sit here and smile?"

Lelouch gave him the sort of pained look that he only got when he thought someone was being particularly dense—or on those rare occasions where Lelouch had actually been forced to attend P.E. "What right do you have to suffer, when building up so much misery will inevitably affect everyone around you?" Lelouch retorted. "The world needs Zero to be at his best, so you can't just sit around, wallowing in your own misery."

"So I should just shrug my shoulders and get over everything?" he asked, offended that Lelouch made the weight of so many ruined lives sound so frivolous, and Arthur jumped down from his lap in objection to his volume. "I'm doing the best I can, Lelouch!" No matter how hard it was to get up in the morning or to wear the clothes that brought his grief crashing down on him, he'd always gritted his teeth and done it. "This isn't as easy as you make it sound! Just because I'm not up to the standards you set as Zero—"

"I'm not trying to compare our abilities!" Lelouch cut him off forcefully, before the expression on his face gentled. "I certainly wasn't trying to insult you," he continued much more quietly. "I'm only warning you that your current way of thinking will inevitably lead to negative, unintended consequences. No one can be at his best when he's suffering."

"But if I could feel good after the horrible things I've done, then there's no way I could be fit to play the part of a hero for anyone, much less the entire world."

"Well, it wouldn't hurt if you would go just a little easier on yourself," Lelouch grumbled, and his put upon expression was so familiar just then that it sapped Zero's desire to argue. _You'd wear that same look through all of Milly's crazy festivals, too._

"So now you want me to slack off in punishing the guilty?" Zero asked, with an amused quirk of his lips. "I thought you told me Zero had to be the 'tireless champion of justice'."

Lelouch gave him a sour expression, muttering something that sounded less than complimentary under his breath. "And people called me a fanatic," Lelouch complained, as he always did when he failed to get his way. Luckily, he still appeared to be too hungry to start another argument with a full plate of food sitting in front of him, and Zero was more than happy to let the matter drop.

Nearly half an hour later, the sharp clink of another empty plate being set aside easily drew Zero's attention away from idly stirring the remaining food around on his own. His eyes widened. "Wow, Lelouch, I think you've just broken my largest single meal record," he observed, looking at the stack of clean white dishes sitting beside the new immortal.

"It does seem like I saved up quite an appetite," Lelouch agreed when he'd finished swallowing his food.

Zero felt incredibly relieved to notice how much better Lelouch looked now that he'd had sustenance: the bruises beneath his eyes had completely disappeared and his skin had finally added its usual hint of pink to the paleness, covering the bones of his face more gently, so that while his features still appeared angular and somewhat sharp, he no longer looked skeletal. Lelouch had also stopped favoring his left side, leaving Zero to hope that the Code had finally healed the ribs he'd accidentally injured.

"Speaking of appetites, Suzaku—"

"Zero."

Lelouch grimaced at that, but then, he never had liked having his mistakes pointed out. "Zero, then. While it's fortuitous for me, I couldn't help noticing that you seem to have a lot of hardly touched meals in your refrigerator. Have you really been that busy, that you've had no time at all to eat?"

"No, it's not that," he quickly contradicted, because the last thing he wanted Lelouch to think was that the world had taken a sudden turn for the worst and their shared sacrifices had become worthless. "I haven't had to deal with any crises," he assured him. "But with the political systems of the world in such flux, I haven't been sitting around doing nothing, either," he added, wanting to assure them both that he normally did take his duties seriously. "Some days have gotten hectic, especially when I have to travel, and I obviously can't take off the mask to eat when they have those 'lunch meetings'. It's not like I don't have time for mostly regular meals, though."

"You may have the time, but...you do look a little thinner," Lelouch pointed out, in that soft voice he used when he was actually trying not to be insulting. It was rather touching that he'd speak so gently, when Nunnally wasn't even around to scold him.

"I'm fine. In any case, I can't possibly be worse off than you were."

"I was trapped in a coffin for weeks, so that's hardly an encouraging comparison. Besides which, you don't have a Code to revive you if you starve to death."

"No, but if it gets bad enough, your Geass will force me to eat," he replied offhandedly, staring at the lump of mashed potato currently on his fork and wondering if he should force himself to take another bite, at least for appearance's sake.

"How can you be so sure?" Lelouch asked intently.

"Because it already ha—" He cut himself off, catching Lelouch's darkening expression a few seconds too late.

_He asked me, "How can __**you**__ be so sure?", so he probably already knew himself, and was really just asking to see what information I'd give away. _

Zero sighed.

_I walked right into that one._

"Look, it wasn't recently. It was just, after Euphy...died, and then I found out you were Zero and—and sold you out to the Emperor," he said, looking down so he didn't have to meet Lelouch's sharp gaze. "I had to leave school to serve him, even though Euphy told me to finish, and I kept having to lie to Nunnally about everything. Then, some civilians were accidentally killed during one of my military operations as the Knight of Seven, and it was just a really bad time, and I—I was thinking I didn't really want to... But the Geass made me eat, so I know I'm not in any danger of starving to death," he blurted out in a rush. Zero frowned. "Well, now that I think about it, it was probably just dehydration, actually, because I hadn't been drinking any water, either, so..."

Lelouch's expression was still livid despite the explanation, which was very unfortunate, because now that they were safe and the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, Zero was starting to remember that he was far too tired to be having a prolonged argument at four in the morning.

"Do you think that makes it any better?" Lelouch asked him, and there was nothing soft left in his voice. "Whether it's dying of hunger or of thirst?"

"Lelouch, that was a while ago—"

"Really? And you've changed so much since then? You're eating so well, now? You could be impersonating a panda, from the circles under your eyes! Are you sleeping at all? Doing anything to take care of yourself?"

"First of all, I wear a mask all the time, so it's not like anyone would normally have a chance to get upset over what I look like," he retorted, trying to defend himself before Lelouch really worked himself up into another of his tirades. _Even if I should feel guilty over it, I'm so happy just to have you back—__why do you have to argue with me now?_ "Secondly, as long as I can keep playing Zero, what does it matter?"

Lelouch stepped toward him, eyes flashing. "Have you any idea how stupid—"

"Already fighting?" C.C. interrupted, closing the door to the suite more loudly than strictly necessary as she finally came in. Through the doorway, Zero could see her carelessly dropping his spare key onto a side table, before sauntering into the dining room with one eyebrow raised. "I knew it would happen eventually, but you certainly got over your gratitude for our rescue quite quickly, Lelouch."

Lelouch winced, before objecting, "He was the one who started it!"

"You deliberately asked me an entrapping question!"

"How could I not ask?" Lelouch said, turning back to him. "You look half dead!" Beneath his anger, he sounded almost worried.

"_Me_?" Zero asked in shocked. "Have you any idea what _you_ looked like when we found you tonight?"

"Yes, I wish we could have risked taking a picture, Lelouch," C.C. interjected. "Even considering that you had so little time with your Geass to prepare you for bearing a Code, I never realized an immortal could look that bad. But then, you always were an exception to the rules."

Lelouch glared at her, his pride obviously offended. "I'm an exception—that's your excuse? I still haven't completely forgiven you for leaving me trapped so long; you should have figured things out more quickly!"

At C.C.'s small but very real flinch, Zero broke in, "Lelouch, please, I know you're upset, but can't we save the arguments for the morning?"

Lelouch might have looked just a little ashamed over what he'd said to C.C., but it was hard to tell. He'd always been a very accomplished actor. Finally, the former emperor gave Zero an intent, searching look, before huffing out a grudging, "Fine." Lelouch ran a hand through his stiff bangs. "I suppose I could use a shower now, anyway. Let me borrow a set of clothes?" he asked, looking at Zero.

"Oh. You want to change for bed?" Even though it was an unholy hour and Zero himself was desperately tired, he hadn't actually wanted to prompt Lelouch to shower and go to sleep.

_I have so many questions, so many things I wish I'd told you, before Zero Requiem... Not that I've been doing such a good job of bringing up the heavy stuff, but maybe if we could just sit here talking a little longer, I'd be able to work up the courage to say something important. _The threat that Lelouch intended to die again, once the mystery of the Code transference was solved, still lurked uncomfortably in the back of his thoughts. _Even if it goes against Zero's duty to keep the Demon Emperor alive, as long as no one knows, it won't hurt anything, right? If I can only make you see that you're still needed for more than just solving this problem..._

Lelouch shook his head, at least assuaging the fear that he'd soon be saying goodbye for the night. "No, I've spent the last several weeks trying to sleep more than I ever wanted to," he said, and Zero breathed an internal sigh of relief. "I just want to finally take a shower and get out of this," Lelouch elaborated, pulling at the wrinkled cravat at his neck for emphasis. He grimaced. "I'm still not convinced C.C. has been washing it regularly," he confided, shooting her a dirty look. She merely smiled in return, though Zero could read a teasing remark about Lelouch's prideful nature on the tip of her tongue. He was grateful that she didn't actually voice it.

"I can give you a clean Zero costume," he suggested, hoping that would satisfy Lelouch.

The former emperor rolled his eyes. "I don't need that. I just want a set of regular clothes."

"I...don't really have anything like that... Sayoko did get me several pairs of pajamas, though."

Lelouch stared at him, incredulously. "Do you just not want to lend me anything? You had at least a drawer full of regular clothes. I saw it once, remember? Where you kept your old Ashford Academy uniform, and the rest."

"I threw all that out, Lelouch. I mean, those were Kururugi Suzaku's clothes, so I had to get rid of them."

Lelouch frowned, looking like he was suddenly exercising an intense amount of control. "I see. How...diligent of you. Very well, just lend me your pajamas, then."

Zero worried at his lip, as he retreated to the bedroom to pull out a clean set for Lelouch. Except for the three small items he considered too precious to part with, he'd accepted the fact that he could no longer live as Kururugi Suzaku and had accordingly expunged all traces of him from Zero's life, so that he could be only the dutiful hero, the person Lelouch had left in charge of taking care of the rest of the world.

That was what made Lelouch's responses so maddening. Since Zero was obviously supposed to be only Zero now, why was Lelouch so upset that he didn't have Suzaku's old clothes? That seemed pretty hypocritical, even for him. On the other hand, Lelouch had always been able to think half a dozen steps ahead of the current Zero, and he was often busy reacting to things that his friend hadn't even thought of yet.

Zero clenched his fingers, guiltily.

_Maybe he realized, when I went back to check that the box hadn't been disturbed—the door to the bedroom was closed, wasn't it, so why did I even need to check? _He silently cursed his own stupidity._ Lelouch probably figured out that I've kept something, because by rights, there shouldn't have been anything precious here, other than the mask I was already wearing when I walked in. _

If Lelouch had figured out that Zero had kept some things, it might make more sense that he'd been annoyed that Zero hadn't also retained the clothes that would have been presently useful to Lelouch himself. _Or maybe this was just another test. He suspects that I haven't followed through on the promise I made him, but he doesn't have proof, so he deliberately asked for clothes to see if he could catch me red handed. Now he's annoyed because his plan failed, or because he feels that I betrayed his last wish, but he has no proof to confront me with._

Zero looked toward the little cubby where he kept the box._ I got rid of all my Knight uniforms, my flight suits, my Ashford Academy clothes. My pictures. My old satchel. I even donated Euphy's quill to Arthur. But those... Even if it means I'm not following my promise to the letter, I can't put something so __precious in the trash—just like I can't give up my best friend again, no matter what._


	5. Investigation

Lelouch stared at the newspaper Sayoko had left lying innocuously on the newly procured, unscratched dining room table. _I'm supposed to be dead now and I will be again soon, so I shouldn't let myself get re-involved with the world._

Some stupid part of him wanted to see, though, what the new world was like, to have confirmation of the success of his final plan. Peering over at the half folded front page, his eyes picked out a picture of Nunnally, and by then, it wasn't even a question of whether he could resist or not.

Her eyes were open, and it was like staring into a dream.

_Nunnally..._

If only he'd been able to properly smile at her, once she'd been able to see it. He'd had a part to play, though, and...well, he deserved more punishment than he'd received, in any case.

_Maybe if I read the paper, I can learn something that will give me a clue as to what happened with C.C.'s Code_, he rationalized. It was a flimsy excuse, but then, Lelouch was so used to telling lies by then that he hardly noticed one more.

The top article was on the planned fate of the Damocles: a fiery incineration at the heart of the solar system. _Well, that has a certain dramatic flair to it, at least. _He checked the international section, and there was a piece on the passage of the Japanese amnesty legislation proposed by Zero, which would, among other things, allow those serving time solely for Refrain usage to be released to their families, attending counseling and performing community service in lieu of serving out their prison sentences.

Lelouch heaved a sigh of relief on reading that, glad that Suzaku had possessed enough influence as Zero to at least get that bill through. For a moment, he even thought about asking Suzaku if he had heard anything about Kallen's mother, but then Lelouch fiercely reminded himself that he wasn't going to get re-involved, no matter the temptation.

_The temptation is exactly why I can't allow myself to start down that path in the first place. If I begin examining the outcomes and second guessing things, making plans and adjustments in my head, it will only be a matter of time before I stick my fingers into something I shouldn't, which would practically assure my eventual discovery._

He forcefully reminded himself that he'd entrusted the world to Suzaku's care, and that had to be the end of it. Returning his attention to the newspaper, Lelouch read through a few references to Ougi's and Schneizel's activities, in addition to Zero's and Nunnally's, but unfortunately, there was nothing that gave him any hint of how he might have ended up still alive after his own carefully planned assassination. Of course, there hadn't been much chance of that, anyway.

_It's not like the existence of either Code or Geass is common knowledge. If I'm going to figure this out, I need more information than what is going to be publicly available._ Sighing, Lelouch cautiously peeked out into the living room, glad that Suzaku had emerged from the odd retreat he'd staged after lunch. _Even if he has something against me, why rush through his meal just to lock himself in the bedroom? It's not in his nature to flee._

Lelouch shook his head. Suzaku's motivations had always been a bit inscrutable, but that wasn't the mystery he had to solve now. _If I need more carefully kept information, then there's really only one way to get it._

"Suzaku—"

"Zero," he corrected, turning toward Lelouch. At least he had the mask off.

"Right, Zero." It was surprising how difficult it was to stop using Suzaku's name, some lonely, guilty part of him still longing to reach out, to try to reconcile the patchwork of bitter memories that lay between the two of them. If only it could be that simple.

_You once destroyed every part of his life that he cherished, you fool_, Lelouch bitterly admonished himself. _Even if you made __**his**__ life anew, _y_our own will finally be ending soon__. It's far too late to try to make up with him._

Lelouch was having a very hard time accepting things as they were, though. It wasn't like he'd thought Suzaku would be ecstatically happy post Zero Requiem, but the plan had basically guaranteed that he would be hailed as a hero across the globe, as well as ensuring that he would be spending a great deal of his time by Nunnally's side, making the kinder world they all desired.

On top of that, Japan was finally stable and completely free, and the U.F.N. was paving the way to a peaceful future. Suzaku had taken revenge for Euphy and even had his wish to "die" granted in a spectacular funeral ordered by the Demon Emperor himself. All his stated objectives in life had been met, so what more could he have wanted?

Of course, when he forced himself to honesty, Lelouch knew it wasn't what Suzaku had now that was the problem. It was what he didn't have, anymore, and his clear unhappiness provided a false enticement to try to soothe old wounds, even though Lelouch knew that any efforts he made would be futile. _No matter how many "miracles" I produce, I cannot revive the innocent casualties of my plans, and dying hardly counts as an atonement if I can't even manage to stay dead. _

It probably galled Suzaku more than anything to have to ask for _his_ help solving this mystery; they hadn't been able to go two hours in each other's company yet without arguing, as Suzaku chafed under every well intentioned suggestion Lelouch had tried to make. _I have to face the fact that our friendship is dead, and I no longer have the right to comment on his life._

"I need to gather more information to figure out exactly what is going on. How familiar are you with Chinese court etiquette?" Lelouch asked Suzaku as neutrally as possible, not wanting to start another shouting match.

"...Does knowing how to order Chinese takeout count?" he replied, and Lelouch's lips twisted unhappily. He'd been afraid of that.

"Unfortunately, that's not going to be good enough to handle the contact I have in mind," he explained. "He's rather regrettably not known for his patience."

Suzaku frowned, looking down. "I'm sorry, Lelouch," he said, and it was a surprise to have him reverting to apologies, considering how defensively angry he'd gotten before, when he'd felt that Lelouch had questioned his efforts as Zero. "Although you warned me to sound casual, my questions really made that E.U. official nervous earlier, didn't they? And I wasn't any help when you were working to cross reference those seismographs with Thought Elevator locations." Suzaku sighed. "I know I've promised to do a lot of things, and every time I fail, I tell myself I'll make up for it some other way, but recently it seems like I'm not very good at actually delivering on anything at all."

_Is he going to start needlessly blaming himself for something that hasn't even happened yet, now?_ "It's hardly your fault if Zero's Chinese contact is a snob."

"It's not, but that doesn't change the facts, does it? I've always been skilled when it comes to fighting, but what the world needs right now is someone good at international negotiation and detective work and speeches." He snorted. "Even just dramatic entrances. But I just—I'm not very well suited to being that sort of Zero, am I?"

_Is that why you're apologizing all of a sudden—you're trying to excuse yourself from doing this? _The possibility of Suzaku leaving Nunnally unprotected and the budding new peace without a champion made him furious. "Of course you're suited—I chose you personally." _Must you question my judgement at every turn, Suzaku? I have no one to depend on for this but you!_

It was painful, placing so much trust in someone who barely managed a grudging acceptance of his existence, and Lelouch longed for those moments when Suzaku would get lost in old memories and forget, temporarily, how many sins Lelouch had to answer for. _Even if it was only for a short time, we were truly happy back then, weren't we? _ Those moments had sunk in deeply, and it still wasn't possible for Lelouch to hear the rhythmic chirping of cicadas without thinking of a green eyed boy dashing through the woods, his laughter a priceless balm to two motherless children.

"I know you chose me to be the 'hero' who defeated the 'Demon Emperor', Lelouch, but I can only be Zero in my own way," Suzaku murmured. His lack of enthusiasm was distinctly not reassuring. _I'd hoped that seeing things from the inside of that mask would help you understand my thoughts a little better. Do you truly not see your own importance?_

"I know I have a habit of giving you more suggestions than you'd like, but wanting things to be better doesn't mean your way of being Zero isn't good to begin with."

"But if you would only remember how it was when you were Zero, Lelouch, how good you were at—"

"I already told you, I don't want to compare our abilities!" Lelouch cut him off, not wanting to rehash that argument. "How can you use being different from me as an excuse for not applying your own skills?"

"I'm not!" Suzaku insisted. "Even if I don't always succeed, I _do_ take my responsibilities seriously! But in this case, Lelouch, you must be able to see that _you_ are the perfect person to talk to this Chinese contact. You're the very one who convinced him to work with Zero in the first place, so you're clearly the best person to get him to cooperate again."

"Me? Just what are you suggesting?" _Surely he can't mean..._

"You could wear the mask again, Lelouch. No one would know, and it's important to get to the bottom of this mystery, right? The world needs you to do this—to do a lot of things."

Lelouch stood frozen, his heart racing as he weighed his options. Trying to coax Suzaku through the complex social world of snobbish Chinese courtiers was bound to turn into a nightmare which would only encourage Suzaku in the mistaken belief that he wasn't suited to be Zero. In fact, the whole endeavor would probably only serve to further deplete Lelouch's already strained patience and Suzaku's faltering self-esteem, all without gaining them any information. That was something Lelouch couldn't afford, as settling this mystery soon was the best way to keep the world safe from whoever was responsible for his survival—and from knowledge of his survival itself.

_For Nunnally and Suzaku, Kallen and her mother, Milly and Rivalz, for everyone, I must ensure nothing disrupts this peace._

Gingerly, wary that Suzaku might change his mind, Lelouch turned Zero's mask so that he could see the inside of it once more, both frightened and thrilled by the power it represented. It wasn't difficult to adjust the voice modulator already integrated into it; before Zero Requiem, he'd easily been able to calibrate it so that Suzaku would sound enough like the original Zero to keep the ignorant guessing. _Instead of making him sound a bit like me, I could just as quickly alter it to make myself sound a bit like Suzaku._

He'd always liked being Zero more than being the Emperor, anyway, which was exactly why it was so dangerous for him to start wearing the mask again. Practically speaking, though, considering Suzaku's total ignorance of Chinese social formalities, the only viable candidates for this were Lelouch and C.C., and he knew who he trusted more to get the job done quickly. _C.C. probably knows I'll at least try to give the Code back to her, so she has no incentive to hurry this along..._

_Just this once, _Lelouch decided, _and then I'll be able to get this threat taken care of and find a way to die again._ "You're sure you're okay with my borrowing this?" Lelouch said, holding up the mask.

"It's not like you need to ask my permission, Lelouch. I'm the one who borrowed it from you, not the other way around."

"You inherited it," he insisted, worried that Suzaku seemed to have so little sense of ownership.

"When you died, but you're not dead right now."

"I will be soon enough, so don't get any ideas about getting out of your punishment," he added sternly, just in case Suzaku was thinking of trying to foist the job of Zero off on someone else. _It must be you, Suzaku. No one else will do, no matter how hard it may be for you to see your own worth._


	6. Visitation

_"Don't get any ideas about getting out of your punishment."_

The pronouncement cut painfully through his mind; Lelouch had said that to him mere hours ago. Zero looked down at the pin in his hand again, the very words condemning his current action echoing through his head.

_Does he feel my personal attachments have already subverted my ability to perform my duties that thoroughly? Is that why he warned me not to get any ideas of getting out of my punishment?_

What Lelouch was expecting of him was impossible, though.

_I know he told me I couldn't live as Kururugi Suzaku anymore in order to ensure that I became a good Zero. To feel happiness or hope, guilt or sadness, based on a life I should have shed completely—all of these things are equally wrong, because they only get in the way of my duties, which should be my life's sole purpose, now. But even if Zero should be ensuring the Demon Emperor's death, I can't forget that "Demon" is the friend who stood by me in the face of the entire school's prejudice, who accepted me even though I killed my own father, who still placed his trust in me after I betrayed him so badly._

Zero cradled the pin in both hands, suddenly clenching his fingers until the hard edges began to cut off blood flow to the outer layers of his skin.

_Lelouch, don't ask me to give up the things that mean the most to me. I know I promised to sacrifice everything for the sake of the world, but as long as I feel this guilty, isn't that punishment enough? Wasn't killing you once enough of a sacrifice?_

Zero heard the creak of the door as C.C. came in, and he scrambled to put the pin away before she could see it. "Guilty secret?" she asked, coming over to try to look into the cubbyhole behind the headboard of his bed.

"It's..." Besides his three mementos, there was only one other thing he kept in the cubby, and he pulled it out. "It's the cleaning and maintenance kit for...for the sword Lelouch gave me."

"The one you killed him with," C.C. rather heartlessly elaborated.

"Yes," Zero confirmed, wincing. "That one. I...it just occurred to me that I've really only cleaned it once, the night after Zero Requiem, and I still feel like it's...stained." The last part, at least, was true. "I mean, I can't _see_ his blood anymore, but..." _I feel it. Like a lingering sin, I feel it on the blade, on my hands, everywhere..._

"Blood..." C.C. suddenly drew a sharp breath, as if something had just occurred to her.

"C.C.?" he asked, as she only stood there silently for a moment more.

"You should definitely clean it again, Zero," she told him, face suddenly very serious. "If you don't clean it properly, it will rust."

"Yes, of course," he agreed, reluctantly getting the sword out and beginning to clean and oil it under her watchful gaze.

_I wonder why she's so interested in my properly maintaining this sword, all of a sudden?_

He didn't have time to think further on it, though, because a knock at the door of the suite sent Lelouch fleeing into the bedroom with them. Zero met Lelouch's eyes, and they both knew he'd recognized Nunnally's knock. In addition to the panic, there was a look of intense longing on Lelouch's face.

"Did you want to see her?" Zero asked quietly, knowing how much Lelouch had missed his little sister.

He shook his head violently, and something in Zero's heart sank. "I can't," Lelouch whispered, agonized. "I'll have to die again, after we have the mystery of this Code transference figured out. I can't make her go through my death a second time."

It took his denial of even Nunnally to really bring home exactly how serious Lelouch was about dying. _I thought if I just got him to use his talents as Zero, that would convince him he's still needed, but all he can see is the danger the Demon Emperor represents. Even though he could still do so much for the world, even though he could see his little sister again... _Zero shivered, as whatever meager fortitude Lelouch's temporary survival had restored, was swiftly replaced by cold, corrosive dread. _He's not going to expect me to kill him again, is he?_

"C.C. and I will hide back here in the bedroom," Lelouch declared softly, his mind already busy planning and clearly oblivious to his friend's train of thought. "We'll keep the door shut, but don't let Nunnally come back here, no matter what," Lelouch whispered, so quietly now that Zero could barely make his words out.

"O-okay," he managed to reply, still trying to get his own reawakened fear of impending loss under control.

Lelouch frowned at him. "Well? Don't keep my sister waiting," he admonished, words firm but voice nearly absent, like a T.V. whose volume had been turned all the way down.

Zero blinked, finally remembering where his duty lay. _I may not know how to resolve everything now, but __I at least won't fail you in this, Lelouch._ "Right." He nodded, donned the mask, and hastily made his way to the door of the suite.

"Welcome, Empress Nunnally."

She gave him a pleasant smile as he stepped back to allow her in. "Hello, Zero." She looked around at the newly refurbished post feline carnage suite, her face betraying mild surprise as she wheeled herself into the center of the front room. "It looks like you've redecorated."

_You have no idea._ It was only thanks to Sayoko's incredible skills that the suite was anything approaching respectable again. Zero didn't know when she'd even found the time to procure a whole new set of furniture, tasteful dark woods upholstered in creams and charcoal greys, with subtle golden accents.

"Ah, yes, I decided it might be good to have a change in scenery." Which didn't really make sense, given that he'd only had the room for a few weeks, but he wasn't eager to give her the real reason, as Arthur's presence would give away more about his identity than he'd like.

Nunnally frowned. "Because you were so concerned with privacy, I deliberately assigned you quarters with no windows, but the truth is these interior suites were all designed during the ascension feud era. They're more like bunkers than homes. Have you perhaps changed you mind about where you'd like to live?"

"No, not at all, Your Majesty. On the contrary, I'm grateful that you've taken my concerns so seriously."

"Still, it must be boring to have the same view, day after day. Have you considered spending more time outside? In the gardens, perhaps? I would not mind the company." For a moment, a deep sadness passed over her face, before she hid it once more under a friendly smile.

"If you require my presence, Empress Nunnally, then I will of course escort you on your future visits to the gardens."

"Oh, no," she objected, her expression pained. "I don't want to order you there. I don't think I could feel relaxed, if you only came out of duty, and I certainly don't want to put any more burdens on you."

She looked at him searchingly, even though the mask hid his expression. "If anything, I think perhaps you work a little _too_ hard already, and aside from work, you seem to spend all your time in these rooms. It...it doesn't seem like a very fulfilling life," she added hesitantly, in that gentle way she had. The selfless concern in her expression reminded him of everything Lelouch had entrusted him to protect, even as it increased his guilt tenfold.

_I took your brother from you, Nunnally. I don't deserve your concern._

"My duty is enough." _Sometimes, it is more than I can bear._

"Life is more than just duty."

"Not mine," he told her gently but firmly, hoping to avoid that line of conversation entirely, so that she wouldn't have the chance to stir up the lingering selfish impulses he needed to keep buried. Zero might not be as good at prediction as Lelouch, but even he could see that could only end poorly.

She gave him a pained look. "But surely, you—"

"I don't have the right," he cut her off, sorry that he was being rude, but too guilty to stand there and allow her over-tender heart to pour out sympathy he didn't deserve. _Do you know how many innocent people I've killed, Nunnally? How many precious lives I've wrecked, one of them your own?_ "Please understand, I swore myself to this duty willingly, so..." _I don't have the right to back out now._

There was a slight creak from the next room, and Nunnally looked up in alarm. "Is there is someone else here?"

_Oh no._

"W-what makes you think that?" he asked, glad that he'd long ago gotten out of the habit of holding Nunnally's hand—it gave far too much away. "It's probably just the new furniture settling."

She gave him a hard look. "I understand that you have your secrets, but I do not enjoy being lied to."

He opened his mouth to try again to convince her, but she cut him off, with a flash of pride in her eyes that reminded him painfully of her only full brother.

"Because I was blind for so long, I learned to pay a lot of attention to my hearing. Did you think I would suddenly lose that skill, simply because I've been able to open my eyes?"

Zero began to sweat under the mask. _If she sees Lelouch..._ He couldn't fail at such a simple task, not after he'd already failed at so many things.

Before he could get himself too worked up, though, C.C. stepped out of the bedroom with a flamboyant curtsy, her exaggerated motion easily distracting Nunnally from the fact that C.C. had firmly closed the bedroom door behind herself. "Your Majesty."

"Ah! C.C.! I couldn't get a picture of you, but you look just like Sayoko described you. I thought it might be you here," Nunnally exclaimed, the hardness in her face erased by a smile.

"How did you know?" Zero asked, relieved that Lelouch's secret was safe, but surprised that Nunnally had been able to make such a prediction.

"Because this morning you asked Sayoko to start bringing pizza to the room, along with larger regular meals. But I think it's a lost cause, trying to get her to eat anything else when pizza is available," Nunnally told him, smiling.

"Oh." It was obvious how she'd figured it out, of course, now that he thought of it. He knew Lelouch would never have made such a careless mistake, if he were still playing Zero.

_I should have asked Sayoko not to let anyone know about the pizzas. It's lucky Nunnally just assumed the extra regular food was for C.C., too._

Nunnally's expression fell slightly as something seemed to occur to her. "You disappeared so suddenly, C.C., and now you've mysteriously reappeared. There's nothing wrong, is there?" she asked, and Zero cursed the perceptiveness that, while not quite at her brother's level, was nonetheless certainly formidable.

C.C., thankfully, was also a very accomplished liar. "Oh, no, this is purely a social call," she assured with a lazy smile, her body gracefully sliding into a careless sprawl across the living room couch, as if she hadn't a worry in the world. "Well, and an opportunity for free pizza. Besides, this one lives such a boring life," she said conspiratorially, indicating Zero with a casual wave of her hand, "I thought I'd take pity on him and allow him the brief pleasure of my company, before I head back out to the countryside."

"Oh," Nunnally exclaimed with a small start, as if she'd just remembered something. "Speaking of the countryside, Zero, I actually came here to talk to you about Anya."

"Anya?"

"Yes. She's told me that she'd like to go away somewhere quiet, out on the countryside, maybe, but since Gino wants to remain here, I was worried about sending her off alone. This morning, though, I thought of something that might work."

"I'm sure Zero already knows this, but just to fill you in, C.C.," Nunnally said, turning toward the older woman, "I've been trying to convince Jeremiah that he doesn't have to spend the rest of his life guarding my brother's grave. He's been rather stubborn, so I was worried I wouldn't be able to get through to him, but today, he finally seemed to take my words to heart. He told me he wouldn't mind retiring somewhere calm and peaceful."

"Do you think perhaps he and Anya would be good company for each other, Zero?" she asked, turning back to look unerringly toward his eyes, although Zero knew that she couldn't actually see them through the mask, just as she couldn't see his tender smile.

_Nunnally has always been so thoughtful, so concerned for the happiness of others. She's so much like Euphy, in that way._

"I think that's a wonderful idea," he told her.

"Great," Nunally said, smiling. "Then, since you've recently spent some time in the countryside, C.C., perhaps you could give me a few suggestions for locations?" she asked, turning back toward the other woman.

A deceptively innocent smile curled on the witch's lips. "Oh, I think I know the perfect place," C.C. said, grabbing up a pad of paper and a pen to write out an address. She handed the sheet over with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Nunnally studied the paper intently for a moment. "An orange farm?"

"Mild weather, warm climate, and plenty of quiet."

_Not to mention a constant reminder of Lelouch's Geass._

"Well, it sounds like a good place. Thank you for suggesting it, C.C."

By this time, Zero had begun to relax again, thinking that things were going to work out fine. Of course, that was when Arthur decided to uncurl from the spot where he'd been sleeping, concealed underneath the table, so that he could walk over and bite Zero on the hand.

He barely suppressed his cry of pain, but Nunally stiffened violently, anyway. "...I thought so. So it is you, after all." There was something very accusatory in her voice.

He stood awkwardly, not sure whether to move forward to reassure her or back away for fear of her wrath.

"Why?" she asked him simply, as she had all those nights ago, but this time, in addition to the pain, there was steel in her voice.

"Nunnally, I—"

"I _knew_ it was you, but then you wouldn't acknowledge me as any more than a professional duty, and a part of me didn't want to believe you were Suzaku. How could you be so cold to me, if you were my friend? How could you kill my brother so calmly, if you were his?"

"I...there are things you don't understand."

"Then tell me, so that I do understand them. _Why_ did you kill him?" she demanded, her face strained with grief.

"I..." Her eyes, bright even beyond his mask's dark tint, seemed to bore straight into him, and as before, he had no answer for her, his heart collapsing under the force of her unvoiced accusation.

_Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I kept telling myself things had to be that way, that killing Lelouch was my duty to the world, but even though peace is so important, why couldn't I find a better way? _

"It was Lelouch's wish to die, in order to create a new world," C.C. said, stepping in to defend him when he didn't defend himself, even though he didn't deserve her protection.

"That does not answer my question!" Nunnally stated, chin up, shoulders squared, and eyes determined, and she had never looked more like the Empress she was than she did then. "You will tell me why you killed my brother, Suzaku! Why would you help him go through with this plan? Why did you not stop him?"

He didn't even attempt to correct her usage of a dead name, desperate to find something to blunt the pain they were both feeling. "Nunnally, he worked so hard for this. He wanted to make a kinder world for you—"

"When did I say I wanted this world? When did I say I wanted a world without my brother in it!" she shouted, her voice ringing with the strength of righteous grief. "Do not dare to place this decision on me! When did _you_ decide you wanted such a world?" she pressed.

_I don't even know. I only remember being full of rage and loss._ "Nunnally, Lelouch and I both recognized that the world couldn't go on as it was—"

"Just because you had to make a decision to change things, doesn't mean you had to make _this_ one. Why did you choose a world without him?"

_Because Euphy's dream, a peace built on kindness and understanding, was unreachable with my bloodstained hands. _"I tried to find a good way. I tried so hard for years, but all I did was add more sins and failures to my name. That's why I had to take the only path open to me to achieve a peaceful world, even though I knew it had a terrible cost."

"The _only_ path?" she challenged, and her aching expression poured doubt into his already uncertain mind.

"I—I didn't know any other way. I didn't _want_ to kill him, Nunnally!"

"Then why did you?" she asked, her entire frame beginning to shake, as tears of deep grief sprung to the surface of her eyes, drowning out her former strength. "He was your friend. He was your best friend, so why?" Her voice carried a wretched, uncomprehending cry now, pleading for an answer that would stem the pain. He didn't have one. He had only an ugly truth.

"...Because this is my punishment." _I was so filled with hate, so determined to change the world no matter the cost, I even agreed to slay my best friend. _He remembered how he'd told Lelouch not to be weak, just because they'd be fighting Nunnally, just because that sin would hurt him more than anything else could._ So what right did I have, to look back and regret the very plan I'd told __him__ not to falter in completing, when I finally recognized what a terrible sin I'd committed to, myself? _"This is my punishment, forever," he murmured hollowly, sinking to the ground. _Because this __**is**__ the world I wished for, in the cruel depths of my own rage. A world where I killed Lelouch._

Some part of him had always believed that wish would never be made real. Even during the confrontation on Kamine Island, with the pain of Euphy's death raw and raging in his mind, a buried corner of his heart had still remembered the frail, violet eyed boy who had struggled up the many steps to the shrine with his tiny sister on his back, insisting to her that it wasn't a bother at all. It was that denied but still powerful sentiment which had kept him from ever firing a fatal shot, latent decency rebelling against his monstrous wish for vengeance. _But then Zero Requiem came, and I finally had to pay the full price of my own vicious spite. _It was a fitting punishment, indeed, that he'd gotten exactly what he'd once told himself he wanted above all else, and yet he was utterly miserable with it.

_To be a hero and save people, to bring peace to the whole world—even for that, how could I be happy, when it came at the cost of such an unforgivable sin?_

"Suzaku..." Nunnally reached out a hand toward him, but he flinched away, looking down so that he wouldn't have to see her angry and grieving and yet still sympathetic eyes.

_I don't deserve anyone's pity, when I've wished this on myself._

"I'm Zero. I'm just Zero, now. The person you knew is dead, as he deserves to be." _You will be better off, without trying to sympathize with your brother's murderer._ "You don't know me, anymore." Nunnally looked at him brokenly for a moment longer, before withdrawing her hand, all the life seeming to drain out of her.

"I see. So we really are strangers then, after all." Something in her face crumpled. "It's sad...to lose yet another friend." His heart ached for the pain in her voice, but he couldn't take his words back. _You were right to begin with, Nunnally. How can I be your friend, after the things I've done? A person who could harbor such hate in his heart will only end up hurting you more._

She turned her wheelchair around slowly, her breath hitching. "C.C., it was nice to see you, but I think I'd better go now," Nunnally announced, nodding her head in parting. Her thin arms trembled visibly with the force of her quiet pain, as she pushed herself out, past the door C.C. opened for her.

"Goodbye, Suzaku," she whispered into the air with excruciating finality, as she left.

He knew she wasn't talking to him, but bidding farewell to a man already long gone. Even so, the words still hurt, and Zero wondered if there would ever come a day when the ghost of what he'd once been would stop haunting him. _Why can I never lay the dead to rest?_

He wanted the sins of the past to be fully buried so badly. He needed them to be, both for the sake of his crumbling sanity and in order to be Zero, but Nunnally's grief made him question even his most deeply held convictions. _What if there was some other way to achieve peace, that my own anger blinded me to? What if it was only my own thoughts that kept me trapped on that path?_

The cold horror of that possibility crawled through his mind. _How can I live with myself, if I chose to commit such a gruesome, traitorous act, and it wasn't even necessary?_


	7. Ghosts

Lelouch had to use every bit of self control he'd ever possessed to force himself to remain safely behind the bedroom door until he was quite certain Nunnally was far, far out of earshot. When he finally opened the bedroom door, though, Suzaku was still crumpled on the floor, and C.C. gave Lelouch a dirty look, as if to say, "You caused this."

"If you hadn't brought Arthur, it wouldn't have been so obvious!" he hissed at her, feeling furiously defensive, entirely thrown off balance by the sound of his two dearest people unintentionally inflicting so much pain on each other.

_Oh, Suzaku, you must know this isn't what I intended._

"She would have figured it out, sooner or later," C.C. informed him petulantly. "You're just angry that you had to be here to deal with the mess you thought you left behind."

He shot the witch an angry look before walking over to Suzaku, who was on his knees, still. _Is what she said true? Was I just lying to myself the whole time, deluding myself into thinking that everyone would be alright, so that I could die peacefully?_

Even as Lelouch moved to stand right beside him, Suzaku said nothing, only reaching out to grab onto the cuff of one of Lelouch's borrowed pajama bottoms, like a drowning man clutching at a lifeline. For once unsure of what to say, Lelouch tried gently pulling off the mask Suzaku was wearing, hoping that seeing his face would give more information to go on. Unfortunately, Suzaku only responded by bowing his head heavily against Lelouch's leg, so that none of his expression was visible, as if he truly didn't have the strength to face anything, just then.

Lelouch muttered a soft curse under his breath. _I wanted to make things better for you. _He'd never really let go of the memory of a green eyed boy dashing through a field of sunflowers, laughter as bright as the summer afternoon that had warmly enveloped three young children. Back then, Suzaku had always won at tag and lost at hide-and-seek, and Lelouch wondered why he couldn't find any of that playful, unrestrained boy now, in the man he'd grown into. _Where are you hiding, Suzaku? Is the part of you that isn't Zero—that isn't duty and secrecy and sacrifice—so deeply buried that I can't even __see it anymore?_

It hurt to think that those he'd cared for most now suffered the most deeply, in the better world that he'd supposedly created, and something close to despair coursed through his veins. _Nunnally was crying again, because of me._

His fists clenched. _I gave everything I had, but it just wasn't enough, was it? My sins were too great._

He looked toward C.C., wondering if she had any more biting words for him, but she was only watching silently, like a witness fascinated by an unpleasant spectacle, as if Suzaku's emotional implosion had the same mesmerizing nature as sinking ships or colliding Knightmares. Hesitantly, Lelouch reached out to trace an unsteady hand along the back of that bent head, not sure which of them he was actually trying to comfort, and Suzaku made a tiny sound in response that might or might not have been a word.

"Please," he whispered again, voice just barely recognizable this time, although it was still almost completely muffled, as he had yet to raise his head.

"Please what?" Lelouch prompted, letting his fingers rest heavily on the wayward curls lining that impossibly thick skull, as if a walking dead man could be physically capable of pressing renewed strength into a temporarily broken one. _Although I'm not even supposed to be in this world anymore, there must still be something I can do._

"Even if it's Zero's duty to slay the Demon Emperor, Lelouch, _please_, don't ask me to—to do it a second time," a tormented voice keened.

"...I wouldn't," he told him gently. _Not if this is how damaged you are, after the first. _

It was a struggle, not to clench his hands into fists, and thereby convey his own stress to Suzaku.

_Considering how viciously you swore to kill me, I thought you hated me more than enough to be satisfied with finally avenging Euphy, without taking on so much extra pain as part of the deal—but I see now that I didn't properly factor in how guilty you would feel over indirectly hurting Nunnally. You carry too many burdens already, Suzaku; you've always carried guilt too long and too deeply._

Although her eyes seemed almost sympathetic now, Lelouch had the feeling that deep down, C.C. was laughing at him. _How can I die peacefully, if I know this is how I'm leaving things?_

_Die with a smile, indeed._

"I know how painful it is to be condemned by Nunnally," he admitted, thinking of what she'd said to him on the Damocles, "but if you would just speak to her as yourself, Suzaku, I'm sure that she would be able to forgive you."

"Maybe I don't deserve to be forgiven," he responded darkly. "Besides which, I'm not Suzaku, anymore." Some small amount of conviction had seeped back into his voice, though only to disagree.

Lelouch felt his expression tighten. "You know, I've been humoring you about that because I thought calling you Zero would help you move past the loss of your old life and make a clean start, without the guilt of you've always been carrying around. But instead it seems like you're just using this as yet another excuse to be miserable!" he accused angrily, despite his best effort to remain calm.

"Now, you're even hurting Nunnally with this ridiculousness, and I'm not going to support it anymore!" Lelouch told him, never having been able to remain detached where his little sister was concerned. "Your name is Suzaku," he declared firmly. "The rest of the world may know you as Zero, but for those who are close to you, at least have the decency to stop lying about your own name!"

"But you said—" Suzaku began, looking up, but Lelouch cut him off.

"I know perfectly well what I said! What I don't know is how you've managed to twist the meaning into _this_ in your head, but I'm not going to accept responsibility for your own behavior, any more than Nunnally will!" He shook his head, absolutely exasperated. "When are you ever going to learn to stop repeating the mistakes of the past?"

Suzaku winced. "So you feel that way, too?" he asked, his voice trembling. "I keep making mistake after mistake, thinking I'm only doing what I _have_ to, when it's always been my own choice to betray the things I should uphold, or to kill the people I should save..." It was about then that Lelouch noticed Suzaku had totally broken contact with him, having drawn back and wrapped his arms around his waist. He was staring fixedly at the floor. Belatedly, it occurred to Lelouch that piling on additional sharp recriminations was probably not the best way to help a man out of a morass of guilt.

_I just keep making things worse, don't I? _"I wasn't trying to blame you, Suzaku."

Suzaku shook his head. "You don't need to tell me I've done something wrong, when I can feel that for myself. Even with the world finally peaceful, I'm still not satisfied—because I didn't do the right things to get here, did I?" He finally raised his eyes again. "If you can see the mistakes I'm making, then tell me, how can I fix this?"

_I wish someone would answer that question for me, as well_. "Suzaku, did you ever think that perhaps you feel so badly because you blame yourself too much? All you need to do is help guide this new world as Zero, with as much concern for Nunnally and as little self-torture for yourself as you can manage."

Suzaku nodded but remained silent, face tipped down toward the floor once more, clearly unable to take Lelouch's words to heart.

_If he wasn't under my Geass to "Live on", would he? _Lelouch wondered with a frightened jolt, because Jeremiah wasn't that far away. He clenched his fists. _I can't let things go on like this._

Kneeling beside Suzaku, Lelouch placed a hand on one bowed shoulder; talking down to him clearly hadn't been working. "Even though I did have it coming a thousand times over, I am truly sorry, Suzaku, for putting more blood on your hands. For making you the target of Nunnally's betrayed feelings."

"It's..." Suzaku swallowed painfully. "It's no worse than I deserve. My life is like this now because of my own decisions, and this is my punishment, so it should hurt."

It only took a second to go from sympathetic to furious and forget the wisdom he'd had just a moment ago. "Idiot! When will you stop thinking that way!" he shouted, the hand meant to be comforting easily employed for some less than gentle shaking.

"But Lelouch—"

"No! Just stop! Whatever idiot masochistic idea you've got in your head, just stop it!" _How can I bear to see you miserable like this, when I tried so hard to make the world better?_

"But you said—"

"I didn't mean it like that!" he cut in furiously. _Why must you choose to read the worst in my words, when I've only wished you the best? _But there was no help for it. Suzaku's own guilt would keep him from accepting unconcealed kindness, which left Lelouch with an arsenal of half truths, angry demands, and entrapping forms of atonement.

The last of his own anger quickly drained away, as he remembered what he'd been trying to accomplish all along. _This world is supposed to be kinder to you now. _"You need to stop hurting yourself, Suzaku," he nearly pleaded. "I gave you the punishment of being Zero, so please accept that it's enough." Compassion finally gentled his voice along with his hand. "You don't need to give yourself extra," he assured.

"...If you say so, Lelouch," Suzaku replied, almost automatically, but somehow the former emperor didn't believe his erstwhile Knight had really accepted his judgement.

_I thought you'd be able to put the painful past behind you for the sake of your duty, but perhaps that was only the wishful, self-serving thinking of a dying man._

One of Lelouch's biggest problems had long been his inability to accept the truth, especially when it ran directly opposed to the welfare of those he cared for. That was why, instead of working on the Code transference mystery, as he should have been, he had ended up spending the rest of the evening drawing up soundproofing specifications for the suite. Nunnally's hearing was excellent, after all, and he could practically feel another argument looming at the edge of his senses, like the rumble of a dark, threatening storm.

_Even though I don't want to end up fighting with you again, Suzaku, I can't let your self-destructive thinking go unchallenged. There must be a way for me to get you to allow some happiness back into your life, whether you want to listen to my advice or not._

He still didn't understand how Suzaku had ended up this badly off. The day before Zero Requiem, when Suzaku had asked Lelouch if he were sure he wanted to go through with the assassination, the question had been calmly delivered, more as a request for confirmation of Lelouch's own conviction, rather than a plea for him not to die or a desperate cry for reassurance of faltering convictions. _But that's completely at odds with the the way he spoke earlier today, as if he found the act of killing me particularly wrenching—as if he's not sure whether he should have gone through with Zero Requiem at all._

While Suzaku was capable of rather radically evolving his views according to his experiences, there didn't seem to be any particularly moving event which could have befallen him during the time immediately preceding the Demon Emperor's assassination, when Suzaku had been essentially dead to the world.

_Perhaps he simply thought he would be okay with killing me, and only discovered differently after he delivered the fatal blow?_

Late that night, when Suzaku was fitfully asleep, Lelouch cornered the only other person might know anything. "C.C., you said you spoke with Suzaku the morning of Zero Requiem. What exactly did you two talk about?"

"I just asked if he were sure he wanted to go through with it."

"Was he?"

"He said so. Then he got upset thinking about Euphemia and told me to get out."

"That's all?"

"He's not very articulate when he's upset," C.C. replied, shrugging.

Lelouch searched her cool, impassive gaze, but it had always been hard to tell when she was lying. It was hardly likely that she'd had some world shattering philosophical discussion with Suzaku, though. He generally avoided those with the same seriousness Lelouch himself reserved for avoiding P.E. Besides which, if Suzaku had still been getting upset over Euphemia's death that very morning, it seemed unlikely that he'd have any problem executing her killer.

_It just doesn't make sense._

"I don't suppose he's told you why he apparently feels so guilty over killing me?"

"Lelouch, he's even less likely to tell me than he is to tell you."

He pursed his lips. "Very well. I'll just have to try to pry this out of him, on my own."

In the mean time, he reviewed footage of his assassination, looking for any clues to either the Code transfer or the new twist on Suzaku's ever present guilt complex. Unfortunately, other than the perfectly executed drama Lelouch had scripted out for the world, there wasn't much else to glean from the video—except the sound of Nunnally's screams.

He just...

_When I was dying, the endorphins must have been incredible, because the sound of that is..._

Lelouch shut the recording off with a shudder. He hadn't even known she could sound like that. He hadn't wanted to know.

_Perhaps that's why Suzaku feels so guilty._

It was quite easily the most horrible sound Lelouch had ever heard, echoing in his head long after the footage stopped playing.

_Enough. I can't undo the past. Instead, I have to focus on making sure the world stays safe for Nunnally in the future, so that she never screams like that ever again._

Tapping his fingers impatiently on the desk, Lelouch decided that maybe he should go back through everything he remembered from the morning of Zero Requiem, before the procession.

_The Code must still have been with C.C. at some point that morning, and eventually, it had to come to me from her, directly or indirectly. Maybe if I can just figure out what she was up to, it would give me a clue._

After cutting his way through his father's mechanizations, Cornelia's troops, and Schneizel's plots, how hard could it be to simply figure out what his own allies were up to?


	8. Absolution

Suzaku dreamed of the war and the field of corpses that he and Lelouch and a tiny Nunnally had been forced to travel through. Worse than the smell was the horrible casualness of human cruelty, how even death wasn't enough to make a final, lasting impact, as the bodies merely rotted away, and the rest of the world turned onwards, oblivious.

"Suzaku, wait. Will you carry Nunnally for me for a while?" a young Lelouch asked, wide eyes pleading, and so of course Suzaku took her, boosting her tiny frame carefully onto his back.

"Thanks. I'm...so very tired, Suzaku," Lelouch confessed, his voice deeper now, older with a soul deep weariness. "I'll just lie down..."

When Suzaku looked, his friend was all long limbs and closed, black rimmed eyes, collapsed in a bloody sprawl on the ground, white Emperor's robes stained a vivid scarlet. He was just as motionless as the rest of the corpses.

"No, Lelouch!" He started to reach out for him—

_Please..._

"Suzaku," a strained voice whispered in his ear, and he remembered that he had Nunnally on his back, still. When he laid her down so that he could go to Lelouch, though, it was not Nunnally that looked up at him, but Euphy. She held on to one of his hands, her frail fingers trembling, looking as if each breath were a great and terrible undertaking for her.

"The Special Administration Zone, you'll look after it for me, won't you, Suzaku?"

"Euphy, I—"

"Suzaku, I feel so..." The was a beeping from somewhere, slower, slower, somehow bringing with it an indefinable sense of horror.

_Please don't..._

"Euphy," he said desperately, enclosing her pale, delicate hand in both of his, "please hold on. Please hold on a little longer. I promise I'll—"

Her fingers squeezed against his weakly before going limp. Her eyes closed.

_Please don't die._

That beeping turned into a constant blaring declaration: flatline.

"Traitor," his father's voice condemned from behind him.

When Suzaku turned, he could see the man, tall and powerful and solemn, and he himself was standing there so small and guilty, in the terror-paralyzed body of a little boy. What he'd taken to be enormous crucifixes standing to either side of his furious father were actually enormous Knight pins, wings spread like pinioned limbs: Knight of Euphemia, Knight of Zero. What inevitably drew his eyes, though, were the figures at their bases: slender bodies in expensive white cloth, blood frightfully soaking the abdomens of the delicately posed sacrifices.

_Please don't die!_

"This is the world you wanted, isn't it?" he father accused.

"No, no, I, please, don't let them be—" He only wanted to push past his father to get to Euphy and Lelouch, to try desperately to put the blood back into their bodies, to save them, but suddenly there was a knife in his hand, and the knife was inside his father's chest, and the man fell, like some great, ancient tree, with the furious echo: "Why feign grief? You always find something new to betray. The only cause you've been loyal to is death itself!"

"No, I don't want—"

_Please don't die!_

Lelouch fell heavily against Suzaku's shoulder, something red gushing out of his chest. "I'm so tired. You'll hold me up a little while longer, won't you, Knight of Zero?" he pleaded, one hand painting red stains down the side of Suzaku's face, except their skin didn't actually touch, because there was a mask—

"I swear, Lelouch, I will be your sword," he said, trying to grip those thin shoulders, to keep him upright, because if he could just keep Lelouch from falling—but his own hands were so slick with blood, he couldn't get a solid grasp. "Please, I will cut away your enemies, so—"

"Yes. You are an excellent sword. You killed me, just like you killed your father, all for the sake of peace."

"I don't want a peace like this!" he objected. "Please, just don't—"

But Lelouch was already falling, slipping away like every hope Suzaku had ever harbored, every sort of honor or decency he'd held or loyalty he'd sworn.

_Please don't die!_

"Why is it?" the voice of a young boy wailed. "I only want—" The uniform of a Warrant Officer covered his sleeve as he reached out to touch the lid of a marble coffin, the inscriptions depicting shattered promises and broken dreams and all the destroyed worlds that might once have held happiness for him."—just to help people, so why?" With black gloved fingers, he pushed the lid off. "Why do they keep—"

He looked inside to see a field of corpses and three small children. One of the boys, the one with the hole in his chest, right where his heart should be, turned to the other and said: "I'm so tired."

The other boy replied:

_"PLEASE DON'T DIE!"_

Suzaku sat bolt upright with a gasp, his heart racing inside his chest like a runaway horse, galloping blind and terrified, the pace only increasing as he heard the hinges of a door creak.

"Suzaku?" a soft voice asked, and he flinched, leaping out of bed, ready to fight or flee, whichever was simpler, before he realized who had addressed him.

Lelouch was standing there, in the halo of light from the open bathroom door, in a pair of black pajama bottoms. There was a white towel around his shoulders, which he'd probably been using to dry off his still damp hair.

Suzaku was at his side in an instant, pushing the towel out of the way so he could see—

He could see—

"Can you actually see it?" Lelouch asked.

By that time he had reached out to skim his fingers over the spot, searching for what would surely be a scar...

"That's really strange," Lelouch continued, his voice vibrating in his chest. "C.C. told me no one would be able to see my Code sigil—well, unless I deliberately manifested my powers or made a Contract or visited the World of C or something like that."

"I can't see it," Suzaku told him, shaking his head. "I can't see anything." It didn't seem right that such a heavy sin should be able to just disappear, but his eyes found only smooth skin, utterly unblemished, as if he'd never decided to walk down the path that had cost him his best friend. "There's not even a scar," he whispered wonderingly, lacking the words to properly express the enormity of what he was feeling.

_An unexpected outcome can't change a sin that was willfully committed, can it?_

It shouldn't, and so Suzaku didn't know why the simple lack of scar tissue should feel so much like absolution. Yet, his heart unrepentantly contradicted his mind, brightening as if some deep pain had been wiped away, merely because, beneath his palm, Lelouch's own heart still beat.

_There was a hole in your chest. I put a hole in your chest, and now it's gone._

No matter what Lelouch said about the danger he posed to the world or how Suzaku's future lay in performing the duties of Zero, Suzaku himself couldn't help thinking of this as his own personal opportunity for redemption, a desperate second chance, after all the mistakes he'd made, to at last get things right.

_My father was there on the ground before me, and I wished. Euphy's hand was in mine, and I wished. You were falling, and I wished. I've made the same wish so many times in my life, and always, always, I've been denied...until now._

_To have you breathing before me, after I killed and buried you—what is this but the greatest mercy the world can bestow?_

"It's a miracle."

Lelouch frowned. "It's a Code, Suzaku. It's no more miraculous than anything else, once you know how it works. No, what I find stunning is what you just did," Lelouch told him suspiciously. "You reached directly out and ran your fingers right over the sigil. How did you know it was there, if, as you claim, you cannot see it?"

"I had no idea it even existed, Lelouch," he replied earnestly. _Surely he can't think I'd blatantly lie to him like that?_ "I only remember that this is—this is where I stabbed you," he said, tapping the spot that had once, in his eyes, been a violent, scarlet fountain of despair, but was now only an innocuous, perfectly healthy patch of skin.

The door to the dining room opened just then, spilling more light in as C.C. stepped through the doorway, probably hoping for her chance at the shower. "My, my Lelouch," she said with what was probably exaggerated shock, as she looked them over, "when you said he was your 'best friend'..."

It suddenly occurred to Suzaku how easily the situation could be misinterpreted. Blushing uncomfortably, he pulled his hand back and stepped away, but Lelouch only shot her a cool glare. "Don't think you can distract me from the real issue, C.C.! You told me that there was _no reason_ behind the placing of the Code sigil," he accused, obviously determined to catch someone in a lie that night.

She sedately shook her head with a small smirk. "Close, but what I actually told you was that if you were looking for _a_ reason behind the placement of Code sigils, you would be disappointed."

"So there is no general explanation, but there may be an individual reason, unique to each case."

C.C. nodded.

Lelouch looked down, obviously seeing something Suzaku couldn't, his fingers tracing a design on what appeared to be unmarked skin. "If Suzaku hadn't told me that this is where he stabbed me, I wouldn't even have known the precise location of the wound. Furthermore, since I must have gotten the Code before I was killed, how was this location selected, when I couldn't have predicted exactly where Suzaku would stab me until I was actually dying?" Lelouch asked aloud, his brow furrowed in concentration.

C.C. suddenly looked worried. "How can you be so sure that's the right spot? Since there's no scar, perhaps he misremembered."

"Major Guilt Complex, forget how he killed somebody?" Suzaku tried very hard not to be offended at the way Lelouch snorted. "We should only be so lucky. He's the sort to keep beating himself up over some bubblegum he stole back when he was five."

Suzaku stared at Lelouch in open mouthed shock. "How did you even _know_ about that? I never told _anyone_!"

Lelouch merely looked over at him and sighed, shaking his head. "He's even worse than I thought. No, C.C., if Suzaku says this is where he stabbed me, I have no doubt that it's true. The question is, why does this particular spot matter so much?"

"I think you're reading too much into it, Lelouch. Now, if you're done with your shower, I'm going to take one myself," C.C. said, sweeping past him into the bathroom.

"Hey! I'm not finished talking to you!" Lelouch complained, turning.

"Oh?" C.C. asked, sticking her head back through the door to smile at Lelouch in a highly suggestive fashion. "You've decided to shower with me, then, Lelouch?"

"I—I didn't say that!" he objected, and Suzaku could see that this time, C.C. had succeeded in making him blush.

"Well, I'll leave the door unlocked, in case you change your mind," she said sweetly, something salacious in her movements as she lightly shut the door.

Lelouch sputtered for a moment before apparently realizing that he'd clearly lost that round—even though the door was unlocked, he couldn't go in without implying a rather indecent level of interest, and yet he wouldn't get any answers by standing outside. "You can't stay in there forever!" he indignantly fumed, before turning on his heel and marching out to the dining room, blushing brightly the whole way.

"Not one word," he warned Suzaku as he shut the door behind him, perhaps because it was very hard not to snicker, just a little, at the expression on Lelouch's face.

As the sound of the shower started up again, Suzaku stared back down at his rumpled bed, trying to judge whether it would be worth it to attempt to get back to sleep after his nightmare. Normally, he wouldn't even have attempted it, but something about knowing that Lelouch was in the next room over, alive and unscarred, if a little embarrassed, made him feel much braver.

With a sigh, Suzaku let himself collapse back onto the mattress. _There must be some way to convince Lelouch to give up on his death wish, and with a good night's sleep, I'll be that much closer to finding it. _Suzaku couldn't wait for the day when he'd be able to go to Nunnally with Lelouch at his side, once more. _Maybe then I could deserve her forgiveness._ There were so many dreams wrapped up in the hope of the three of them being together again.

Of course, what would happen if he failed in his self-appointed task wasn't something he ever intended to think about. _No, regardless of what "necessity" dictates, from the depths of my heart, I know better now. The only real joy I've had since donning this mask is finding out the person I was supposed to kill isn't dead after all, and there's no way I will let this miracle slip through my fingers!_

* * *

Author's Notes: There are a lot of times during the anime where you see Lelouch standing in front of people, the Geass symbol blazing in his eye, and yet they don't react at all until he actually gives a command (in other words, they apparently can't see the symbol). Also, the red ring around the iris is never mentioned by the characters, even though at several points, characters are rather desperate to know if someone is acting under Geass or not. From this I have implied that the markings are either just cues for the anime viewer or only detectable by characters under certain conditions (i.e. possessing a Geass or Code, being inside C's World, etc.). C.C.'s forehead symbol isn't apparent at all when her hair is splayed backwards and moving around when she's first released from the capsule, and Charles zi Britannia seems to feel no need to wear gloves, even with a Code symbol on his palm. Because no one ever remarks on seeing such symbols, I assume they are similarly invisible to "normal" eyes.


	9. Mementos

Lelouch looked up from his half finished dinner to give the bedroom door a suspicious glance.

"He's always hurrying to finish his meals ahead of us, and then he rushes off into the bedroom. What do you think he's doing?"

C.C. smiled mischievously. "Well, he _is_ a teenage boy..."

Lelouch scowled at her. "You're just trying to get me embarrassed again, aren't you?" _I shouldn't have let her get to me so badly last night._

"Is it working?" she asked.

In truth, yes, but he wasn't about to tell her that. It would only encourage her, and she'd been doing nothing but trying to get him embarrassed all day. "Look, we both know Suzaku's mental processes aren't that healthy. I'm worried about what he might be doing to himself, that he doesn't want us to see." He stared down at his plate for a moment, remembering the sight of Suzaku frantically shedding clothing across the floor as he dashed for the shower that morning, ten minutes away from being late for an early meeting on the other side of the palace. "He—he has a lot of scars."

C.C.'s eyebrows rose slightly. "You think he...?"

"I don't know!" Lelouch hissed back, more furious with his own ignorance than with her. "He claims they're all from combat injuries! Between his time as a military grunt, his reckless piloting, and the Lancelot's lack of an ejection system, I know he has to have ended up with some, but I have no way of knowing exactly how many!"

Lelouch thought guiltily of all the times he'd ordered Kallen to attack the white Knightmare frame, and later, the crushing odds the Knight of Zero had fought through on the Demon Emperor's orders. Lelouch had personally seen Suzaku afflicted with both shrapnel cuts and burns as a result of the Lancelot Albion's final explosion, but as the ruler of the enslaved world, he'd been so busy managing billions of people singlehandedly, he hadn't had any time he could safely take off to tend to his supposedly dead Knight. Besides which, Suzaku had told him in rather furious terms that he wouldn't tolerate a co-conspirator who would risk the time table and secrecy of Zero Requiem by running off to play doctor to a very unwilling and officially deceased patient.

_If only Suzaku hadn't been so stubborn and prideful, insisting on handling the med kit himself when he could barely stay standing; it wouldn't have taken me long to just quickly check him over and dress the worst of his wounds, since I had to help him sneak off the Damocles anyway._

_...On the other hand, maybe it wasn't pride at all. Maybe there was already evidence he didn't want me to see?_

"I know my Geass will prevent him from doing anything fatal, but," Lelouch narrowed his eyes, "since it won't stop him from hurting himself, I sabotaged the lock on the bedroom door while he was attending that reconstruction meeting earlier."

"Lelouch?" C.C. asked, as he sharply put down his fork and pushed up from his chair.

"I'm going to make sure those really are all combat injuries," he announced.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" C.C. asked in an almost bored tone, though she belied her nonchalance by getting up to trail after him. "Won't he be upset—"

"_I'll_ be upset if I find out he's been hurting himself in the next room over, while I've been sitting idly by," Lelouch hissed back, beginning to creep silently as he approached the door.

He took a single deep, bracing breath before turning the knob and shoving the door open in one sharp motion. It banged against the wall loudly, obviously startling Suzaku, who was sitting on his bed, his clothing in perfect order, very much contrary to C.C.'s earlier suggestion.

_I don't know whether to be grateful for that or not._

Suzaku was, however, looking at Lelouch with a guilty, almost frightened expression, clutching something in his palm protectively close to his chest. Lelouch darted forward as quickly as he could, knowing that he'd never be able to overpower Suzaku, so he'd have to get whatever it was away before the other man gathered his wits up enough to resist.

"No, please don't take it!" Suzaku cried, but by that time, Lelouch had already wrenched it away, counting on the Code to eventually take care of any unfortunate encounters his fingers might have with overly sharp edges. Task accomplished, Lelouch looked down at the item that was now resting in his own palm, expecting to see a small knife or a razor. He froze when he actually recognized it.

_A Knight pin._

"Lelouch, please wait, you said yourself that I shouldn't lie about who I am in private, so don't take this away from me!" he said, his voice strained with emotion.

_Suzaku, please don't look at me like that, like I've deliberately stolen something precious. I was only trying to protect you..._

What made it worse was that the pin in Lelouch's hand was not the cheerful blue, white, and gold one that Euphy had bestowed. Instead, he saw something he'd thought destroyed long ago.

"This is from..." Considering the tenuousness of their initial reconciliation and the numerous hostile forces probing for any weakness in their united front, Lelouch had been afraid to hand it to Suzaku during a public ceremony. Accordingly, he had left it nestled surreptitiously in the folds of Suzaku's new Knight of Zero uniform when he'd handed it to him, allowing his still bitter ally the option to privately, furiously refuse it, if the thought of accepting a Knight pin, particularly from the killer of the woman who'd given him his first one, offended him too deeply.

"Some time after you'd changed into your uniform for the first time," Lelouch began hesitantly, "the maid went in to clean your room. She told me that you'd thrown a Knight pin in the trash. I'd thought—I'd thought that it had been destroyed."

Suzaku gave him a shocked, deeply hurt look. "You thought I'd thrown this out?" he asked, distinct offense in his voice. He shook his head. "I threw out my Knight of Seven pin, Lelouch. I'd only kept it so long as a reminder...of what I'd done to get it. It was actually—that is, the Emperor had it commissioned to look just like the one Euphy had given me, except that it separated into two pieces to reveal a tiny blade." Lines of stress creased across his face. "It was probably meant as a symbol of the betrayal I'd committed to get it," Suzaku said, and for a moment, Lelouch was filled with a familiar, blind rage toward his father.

_He was already hurting so badly, but you found a way to twist the knife just a little deeper, didn't you? Just like when a newly motherless boy turned to you for help, and you threw him and his crippled little sister away like they were trash._

"To me, that pin signified the fact that I'd forsaken our friendship," Suzaku continued, "so by accepting your own pin, I was going back on the very decision my Knight of Seven pin symbolized. As much as I was still angry with you back then, I felt I couldn't keep such a sign of betrayal when I was sincerely pledging my loyalty to you again, as your Knight. But as for _this_ pin, I would never... I mean, you are the one who gave it to me, so if you ordered me to... But please don't, Lelouch. I know you want everything I went through in my old life to simply disappear, but I _can't_ just forget, so let me at least keep this one thing from you," Suzaku begged, the expectant look on his face distinctly more brittle than it should be.

_Do you actually __**expect**__ me to hurt you at every turn?_

_...Surely, I can't be that much like my father?_

The thought terrified him.

"Of course you can keep it, Suzaku," he quickly reassured. "You've earned it, haven't you?" He caught his friend's hands and curled them tightly around the pin, trying to press some of his gratitude, some of the deep pride and honor it had been to be, even for so short a time, the one Suzaku swore fealty to. "You were everything I needed or could ever have hoped for in a Knight. After all you've done, I wouldn't try to take it back."

"...Th-Thank you, Lelouch. I—it means a lot to me." Suzaku's gratitude was painful because it was so utterly undeserved, and the unexpected revelation of the Knight pin forced Lelouch to redo his calculations yet again.

_Since you'd still been seething over Euphemia's death in the World of C, just before you committed to Zero Requiem, I'd thought your anger toward me had been quelled mainly because you knew your revenge was coming soon, that I would finally be atoning for the pain I caused you and for my sin of destroying her in the cruelest way possible._

"If you're going to hang on to your pin, will you do me one last favor as my Knight, Suzaku?"

"A-anything." Even though part of him had been predicting it, it was still a shock when Suzaku actually knelt before him. "Anything you want, Your Majesty."

_I don't deserve such sentiment._ Right now, though, Lelouch would make use of it, whatever its providence, if only to have the final piece of information he needed to complete his calculations.

"Answer me this one question, truthfully: that time at the Kururugi Shrine, when Schneizel's men showed up, did you—"

Suzaku was already shaking his head, before the sentence was even finished. "I didn't know, Lelouch! I swear to you, I never would have let them follow me, if only I'd realized I had a tail I needed to lose."

"I see."

_I reached for you one last time, that day, and I thought you had betrayed me, that our friendship truly was dead to you. But you were actually reaching back._

_I was just too hurt to see it. _

"I've misjudged things."

_When I was Emperor, I believed that, just as you served my father before me, you were only acting as my Knight to further your own goals. I thought that the shared blood on our hands and Zero Requiem, the plan meant to vindicate all the terrible sacrifices made along the path to peace, were the only things tying you to me__. _

Lelouch shuddered with the realization of exactly how much he'd missed seeing. _It's not just that __you're falling back on old patterns, old guilts, now that the war is over. It's not just that you feel badly for hurting Nunnally. Without even realizing it, I added a grave new sin, when I asked you to kill me._

Perhaps the only thing more horrifying than being treated like his own father was being treated like Suzaku's: a senseless, unending weight of guilt. _How can you blame yourself for doing what __**I**__ ordered, Suzaku?_ It was, perhaps, one of the most maddening features of Suzaku's tormented thought processes, that he could blame himself for nearly anything. There was only one last, nagging detail that still didn't fit with the rest, though.

_If Suzaku was so conflicted about taking my life, then why did C.C. tell me that on the very morning of Zero Requiem, when she asked whether he was ready to go through with it, Suzaku only ended up getting inarticulately angry over what I did to Euphemia? _Lelouch was certain there was still some key piece of information he was missing.


	10. Prelude: Shadows

At the sound of someone coming up behind him while he was getting into his Zero costume, Suzaku whirled, grabbing up the sword lying next to him and pointing it threateningly, long before rational assessment caught up with the situation.

C.C. stared back at him over the tip of the blade, nonplussed. "Jumping at shadows? You're just as bad as Lelouch, this morning."

"S-sorry," Suzaku murmured, slowly lowering the blade. "I'm just…tense, right now."

"Oh? Is that so?" C.C. asked, quickly stepping to his side and reaching out to run her fingers lightly down the flat of the sword, tapping it meaningfully. "Thinking about this?" she asked, and for the first time it really sunk in: the sword he was holding was the one he was going to kill Lelouch with.

Even as his mind was committed, his stomach clenched with dread.

"I…it's a few hours yet, but Lelouch told me to try everything out beforehand, to make sure…"

"Yes, he does like to cover every contingency. It's a brand new sword, isn't it?" C.C. asked, her fingers still moving over the blade that very soon would be embedded directly in the Emperor's chest. "Only the best for our dear Lelouch. He never did spare any expense where theatrics are concerned." C.C. had a cool, unreadable smile on her face then, and it suddenly seemed so obscene, the way she was idly stroking something that had been forged to pierce Lelouch's heart. Suzaku quickly flicked it away from her voyeuristic hands, sheathing it.

C.C. had given a slight, unexpected jerk at his quick motion, though, and now she held up one of her hands, watching with mild curiosity as bright red blood welled up from three of her fingers. It made Suzaku think, terribly, of what he had to do today.

"It's sharp."

Her simple words brought him temporarily back to the present, his mind beginning to process rationally again. "I'm sorry," he told her, his ever present guilt rising up to press through his horror and anger, as it occurred to him that he was responsible for yet another unnecessary injury, "I didn't mean to cut you. Here, let me see," he said, reaching for her hand. "I'll bandage it."

"No need," C.C. told him, backing away from his offered hand and wiping her fingers off with a black handkerchief. The cut was gone. "You see? Such a minor injury heals almost instantly."

"Oh. Well, I'm glad you're alright."

"_My_ welfare was never in doubt," she replied, and Suzaku knew that this was one of those statements meant to imply so much more than what was said. It was a bad habit that C.C. and Lelouch both had, insinuating things rather than saying them outright, and Suzaku had always hated this sort of verbal game. Had she meant to imply that he didn't seem prepared for his task? Was she just twisting the knife about Lelouch's impending death? Or did she mean something else entirely, that he wasn't anywhere near clever enough to catch?

Suzaku sighed tiredly, choosing to interpret her words in the most benign sense. "I may be anxious, but I am ready to perform my part. I understand how important this is."

"He has quite a hold over you, doesn't he? That he can have you kill your best friend on command."

Suzaku scowled, trying not to take out his unenviable mood on her, just because she happened to be around—and very good at finding the chinks in his emotional armor. "With our bloodstained hands, we made a pact, for a better future. Until that end is achieved, I am his Knight." Suzaku swallowed. "I will kill him, on his orders, if that's what's necessary."

"Do _you_ think it's necessary, Suzaku?"

"How can it not be? This has been the plan all along, C.C.: Zero Requiem. You know that," he ground out, wishing she wouldn't say anything to shake his conviction, when his own heart was already harboring enough doubts.

She dropped her eyes, staring morosely at the floor. "I know," she replied, her voice subdued, and Suzaku realized, belatedly, that she hadn't just come here to taunt him.

"...I asked, too," he said quietly, taking pity on her. "I asked Lelouch if he were sure he really wanted to go through with it. But you know how he is. Once he commits to a course, he doesn't go back on his conviction. It's one of his better traits," he added with a wry smile, thinking of all the improbable things they had achieved together.

"And one of his worst," she complained.

"Yes, that too," Suzaku acknowledged darkly, thinking of all the horrible things they had done to each other. He hesitated, thinking of a small girl's newly opened eyes, before finally adding, "This...this is going to crush Nunnally." It had been so much easier to agree to this plan before they'd found out she was still alive. _After telling Lelouch he couldn't let Nunnally change things, though, there's no way I can back out now._

"And you?"

"I...I know how many sins he has committed, C.C., because whether I've been aiding him or opposing him, I've been watching him the entire time. By rights, we should both be executed for our crimes. The only unfair thing about this is that he's going to paint me as some sort of a hero."

"Then you don't mind killing him?"

"He's become a monster!" Suzaku retorted, before the anger bled out into something much closer to grief. "He's my friend, but there's a monster in there, too," he told her tiredly.

_I have to remember that. No matter how concerned he seemed over my wounds on the Damocles or how upset he looked over fighting Nunnally, I have seen how glacially cold he can be. If he truly had a functional heart, then how could Lelouch have done what he did to Euphy?_

"If the world could accept him as he is, that would mean it wasn't able to change. How could he live with himself then, after all he's done? How could he live as a monster with just enough heart left to hate itself?" Suzaku shook his head. "He wants to make a new world. He _wants_ to die."

"Oh, so you are doing him a mercy then."

Suzaku gave her a look that was part tortured and part furious, not sure from her flat tone whether she was being sarcastic or not. "What else can I do? We've come this far; we can't go back now. We can't let all the sacrifices that have been made for our new world be thrown away." _It will be hard on her,_ _but Nunnally will be better off with me protecting her, instead._ Suzaku did his best to make himself believe that, for the same reason he'd turned Lelouch away so angrily when he'd tried to help dress the wounds the Lancelot's explosion had inflicted. _If I start to believe that under all the lies, some part of the gentle brother and steadfast friend Nunnally and I thought we knew actually exists... _

"Why do you have to bring up these difficult things now, C.C.?" he demanded. _Can't you see it's far too late to alter this plan?_

She turned her eyes away from his piercing glare, staring at the lush carpeting as if it held some sort of answer. "...It was an accident, you know," she told him softly, "the choice of this path."

He frowned, unsure if she were talking about something specific, like her first, accidental meeting with Lelouch, or if she only meant her words in some cosmic, metaphysical sense, like the potentially illusory nature of free will. He sincerely hoped it was the former; Suzaku had always been painfully disinterested in abstract philosophy.

"Did you know," C.C. began again, almost idly, though even Suzaku knew better than to be fooled by that affectation, "in the beginning, it requires great effort to activate a Geass. It's only if that Geass is overused for a long period that it will run wild. There was one exception, though—a single user who became afflicted with Geass Runaway in less than a year's time. Where before he'd had perfect, conscious control, after that point, Lelouch could jokingly tell someone to jump off a cliff, and it wouldn't matter if he didn't mean it. Anyone who made eye contact at the wrong moment would end up jumping."

"What...what exactly are you trying to tell me?" Suzaku asked, even more confused now.

"He went to the Special Administration Zone with a plan to force Euphemia to non-fatally shoot him using his Geass. In the end, though, he couldn't go through with it; he chose not to use Geass on her."

At the mention of Euphy's name, Suzaku had hissed out a shocked breath, but now his eyes narrowed furiously. He shook his head with unconscious violence, the air between them going suddenly cold. _Even if it hardens my determination, you don't need to remind me of that day!_ "Is this some sort of sick joke to you?" he demanded, livid. "Don't talk to me about what might have been, if Lelouch had scrounged up a single speck of conscience a little earlier! That's nothing but a useless hypothetical! He made her _massacre_ the people she meant to help!" he shouted, practically spitting in her face. "_That's_ reality!"

"He did choose to make peace with her!" C.C. insisted, her normally careless voice harder and more serious than he'd ever heard it. "But not understanding the danger, he was careless with his words; her eyes were on his the entire time. It's not coincidence that my Code bombarded you with memories just as Lelouch was speaking to her; the instability in my Code was in reaction to Lelouch's Geass suddenly activating beyond his control!"

Suzaku stared at her. He was pretty sure the room was still there and that there was still air in it, but he couldn't feel it, something cold crawling across his skin as confusion and denial waged a war inside his heart. _It can't be. It can't. She's lying. This is a trick, some made up story for philosophical debate or just simply to torture me._ But the look on her face was so solemn, so bleak, that if there were deception there, he could not find it. His lungs burned, but he couldn't make himself breathe, the mere possibility that she might be telling the truth striking him hard enough to stop his heart.

"Afterward, Lelouch came to me, tormented, and I witnessed the rare sight of tears in his eyes," C.C. eventually continued. "Euphemia had tried to fight the Geass, but in the end, she was bound by the power of absolute command to kill the Japanese. There was no way for Lelouch to cancel it, so he killed her. It was the only way to stop her from carrying out an order she would rather die than follow."

"No," Suzaku protested weakly, exhaling the last of the cushioning air in his lungs, as he backed up against the wall.

"Yes," C.C. overrode him.

Finally, he found himself forced to draw a breath, only to surrender it again. "Oh, gods." All his determination, all his reasons and excuses, evaporated like so much insubstantial mist, and he slid down the wall, eyes staring vacantly, world blasted open, as the possibility she presented finally started to sink in. He opened his mouth, perhaps intending to voice a plea or a curse, only to close it again, all further language lost, as his scattered thoughts shredded his grasp of reality to pieces.

His own ragged, desperate breathing was the only sound in the room for what felt like a private, painful eternity.

"He...he didn't mean to use Geass on Euphy?" Suzaku stuttered out finally, his voice small and utterly lost, as if asking would somehow cause everything to make sense again.

"He didn't," C.C. confirmed, her eyes sad and very, very old. "When he realized what he had done, it broke his heart, but there was no way to take the accidental command back."

"Oh, gods," Suzaku whispered a second time, curling up over himself, body trembling with painful sickness in the depths of that black, icy shock. He remembered the feeling of grinding Lelouch's head into the ground at the shrine, as the terrorist prince practically begged to be punished, to be judged. Suzaku had thought of the knife in his father's chest and had seen Lelouch's actions as a sign of returning sanity and belated remorse for a plan the monster had finally been able to recognize as wrong.

He was so used to Lelouch's constant, flawless machinations, Suzaku's impressions so unerringly directed by V.V.'s initial accusation, he had never suspected that it hadn't ever been a plan in the first place.

_We held so much hope, Euphy and I. The Special Administration Zone of Japan, it would have been the start of our new world, without all this bloodshed._

It was all the more painful to know it almost was.

"Oh, gods, he didn't _mean_ to!" Suzaku screamed, and in the shock between truth and realization, blind tears were suddenly streaming from his eyes, hands clawing into his hair hard enough to pull out strands by the roots.

_Lelouch, I hated you, I betrayed you, all for a sin you didn't even mean to commit! _

Suzaku could barely process how he felt about that, much less imagine what it must have been like for Lelouch himself, not as a heartless mastermind at all, but just as helpless a victim as Euphy had been, unable to defeat a compulsion beyond human control.

_Geass, that monstrous power..._

_Lelouch, why didn't you ever __**tell**__ me?_

But even as he asked himself, Suzaku knew the answer. He hadn't volunteered extra information to Lelouch about his father's death, either, the guilt too great to speak of, even though he'd longed for punishment.

_It's no wonder we are always drawn back to each other. We are so terribly alike._

Suzaku crushed his forehead against the ground, as he had once crushed Lelouch's. He could feel hot and cold chills running down his spine and through his spasming stomach, the back and sides of his mouth prickling with nausea, and his heart exploding with pain.

_We are so alike, and I do nothing but hurt you for it, Lelouch, because there is no one I hate more than myself!_

Afterward, he was pretty sure there were a few seconds in there he couldn't remember, the fog in his mind a telltale sign that the Geass Lelouch had placed him under had activated again, forcing him to survive at all costs and against all reason.

_I deserve to die. I really do._

The Geass wouldn't allow that.

"Suzaku," C.C. whispered, her feet closer than he remembered them being and moving closer still, at the edges of his vision.

"Don't talk to me! Don't you _dare!_" he raged, finally looking up, uncaring of what his burning, streaming face looked like or what the sound of his wrenching voice must be, only sure that if she took one more step toward him, he really would be testing her immortality. "_You_ gave him that filthy thing! The thing that destroyed Euphy! The thing that destroyed _him!_"

She ceased her approach, staring down at him with seeming impassivity.

He looked back at her with raging, burning hurt in his throat, sickness sweeping through every part of him, his breathing stuttered and eyes wild, and he didn't care if he looked murderous. He was murderous. "Get out!" he screamed. "Get out! Get out! _Get out!_"

In what was perhaps one of the most decent acts of her life, the witch actually left silently.

Then he was alone in the room with the sound of his own harsh breathing, his heart beating like a snake's vibrating rattle, throat screamed raw, and eyes burning ever sharper, no amount of tears adequate to douse that pain.

_Euphy..._

_Oh, gods, Lelouch. It's no wonder you want to die, too._

Then, the most chilling, crippling thought of all:

_For Zero Requiem, I have no choice but to ensure it._


	11. Purpose

"I told myself I was saving him, by giving him a new life as Zero. I _did_ want to save him. But deep down, I was angry with him, too, C.C., because I thought—I thought my first friend, the one who taught me what friendship was, had forgotten that lesson, that he only remembered anger and vengeance."

Lelouch closed his eyes, pained.

"I thought the 'punishment' I gave would _force_ him to remember, that I could instill the duty to give to the world what I truly wanted from him, as if being the one to draw out that dedication would be as good as regaining it myself. But I miscalculated. All this time, he did remember. He did. He was reaching for me, and I just couldn't see his hand for all the pain and betrayal between us."

"There's no need to sit around the table moaning about it to me, Lelouch," the witch declared with her usual bluntness, having little patience for his monologues when she'd run out of pizza. "If you want to be friends with him so badly, just reach back."

Lelouch laughed, bitterly. "I can't, C.C. That's the most frustrating thing. Because as soon as I've solved this mystery, I've got to die again, so trying to restore our friendship now would just end up being another twist of the knife, when the inevitable parting comes. In fact, every day that we spend together is going to make things harder. That's why I have to make progress as quickly as possible."

His Chinese contacts had turned up nothing, though, despite the risk he'd taken in reconnecting, however briefly, to a world that needed to believe him dead. His only solace was that at least the destruction of the Geass Order, to all appearances, had been complete. Accordingly, Lelouch had decided to spend the day researching every arms dealer, warlord, and would be dictator who might have profited from increased geopolitical instability. He'd certainly found that there was still malfeasance in the world; however, there was also no evidence of ambitious, well orchestrated international plots.

Frustrated, Lelouch tried thinking over what had happened to him the morning of Zero Requiem one more time. After all, as Suzaku had pointed out at the tomb, it might be that Lelouch had some personal information that could help.

Three hours later, after going over every paper he'd signed, every conversation he'd had, and every minor twist of C.C.'s expression, he decided in complete dejection that his recollections hadn't given him any clues at all.

_Maybe I am focusing on the wrong things._

His thoughts went back to sigil's location. _Why there?_

_If I had to receive the Code before the assassination, how did the sigil end up in exactly the place Suzaku stabbed me? Was the sword somehow drawn to the sigil, or—_

_No, what if the timing were reversed? It would make much more sense if that were the case: I received the sigil in the place I was stabbed._

Unfortunately, that could only have happened if he'd gotten the Code while surrounded by a crowd of thousands, while on live T.V., no less. Lelouch had already thoroughly reviewed the footage several times (on mute during Nunnally's screams), finding nothing of value.

_How could a Code be transferred, if the only ones near me were Suzaku and Nunnally?_

Granted, they were two of the few people in the world who might have some motivation to make sure that he survived, but they were also incredibly unlikely to have left him helplessly entombed for three weeks. Besides which, neither of them had so much as a Geass, much less a Code.

_Could there be any way to receive a Code without the one transferring it being visible? _ He tried to think of all possible means, but contact was an absolute necessity according to C.C.

_What would the minimum contact be?_

He remembered that time during the battle of Narita, where C.C. had been able to flood Suzaku with memories, merely by coming into contact with the Knightmare frame he was in.

_She touched something he was touching..._

Lelouch's eyes widened in realization, mind suddenly spinning down a dozen previously uncharted corridors at once, and he laughed bitterly to himself, disappointed at how easily he'd allowed his efforts to be misdirected. "Of course. How foolish. Just like the rest of the world, I was searching for the supreme orchestrator of evil. But I, more than anyone, should know that it's just a mirage. The Massacre Princess was just a helpless victim herself, and even my own father was simply a petty creature trapped in the mentality of a terrified child, unable to face the future. What if there is no actual Demon Emperor? What if this wasn't a nefarious plot at all?"

He had the insight, much as it galled him that he'd allowed himself to fall into the same snare he'd set for the rest of the world. It was just a matter of narrowing down the variables, now. Lelouch was sure his clothing and his vehicle in the procession had been brand new. He'd made certain of that personally, since he knew there would be so many eyes watching the legend of Zero unfold.

_So the only option left, the only foreign object I had contact with..._

"Suzaku!" he called, rushing out into the living room.

"Hmm?" his friend responded distractedly, looking up from a half read U.F.N. resolution and blinking a bit at the sudden interruption.

"You confirmed for me that C.C. cut her fingers the morning of Zero Requiem. Is there a chance any of her blood might have gotten on the sword itself?"

"Well, seeing as the sword is exactly what she was cut on, I guess so," Suzaku told him, obviously not understanding the significance.

Lelouch took a moment to process that, to redo his calculations, remembering how she'd tried to get him to ignore the placement of the sigil...

"C.C.!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"You so graciously called?" she drawled, when she finally sauntered out to join them.

"Your blood was on the sword that Suzaku used to stab me," Lelouch accused. "_That_ was the contact necessary to transfer the Code. You left me to rot for weeks—"

"I didn't know, then," C.C. cut in, curtailing the full rise of his fury. "At the time I cut my fingers, it never occurred to me that such a small amount could be enough, especially since our physical bodies were so far apart. It wasn't until after we found you and you told me where your sigil was—and then Suzaku mentioned to me that he'd only cleaned the sword once, the night _after_ Zero Requiem—that I realized what might have happened."

"Then why didn't you tell me as soon as you found out?" he demanded, remembering how thoroughly she'd tried to embarrass him, every time he'd started thinking about the placement of the sigil. _You were deliberately distracting me._

She smirked. "Your problem is that you lack purpose, Lelouch, so I thought I'd let you amuse yourself for a little while longer, searching for the truth." Her face grew sad, then, and she toyed idly with a strand of her long hair. "It's a shame you had to figure it out and end the game so quickly."

Lelouch stared at her, surprised. _I lacked purpose, so you tried to give me a new one._ He knew where she'd gotten that idea. _The bindings of duty..._ He snorted self-depreciatingly. "I really am as bad as him sometimes, aren't I?" he asked in sudden wonder, before his former anger returned with his scowl. "And you're just as inveterate a liar as I am, C.C.!"

"Hey, who were you talking about, exactly?" Suzaku cut in. "That part about your being as bad as someone?"

"No one," Lelouch and C.C. answered together, and Suzaku scowled at them both.

"Why is it nobody ever explains anything to me? It's always lies and secrets with you two!"

"That's because you're always twisting yourself up inside, at the slightest provocation. If you would learn not to let your guilt run so rampant, maybe I would explain more," Lelouch retorted.

"Me? My guilt? Maybe there have been times where I wanted to die, but you're the one who meticulously orchestrated your own death!"

"That was because the world needed the Demon Emperor to die!"

"You're saying that you didn't see it as an atonement? Your guilt didn't motivate you at all?"

"I was saving the world, so what should I feel guilty for?!"

Suzaku narrowed his eyes at him, practically snarling through his clenched teeth and tightening fists. "You...! Sometimes, I can't believe your absolute gall! How can you lie that much with a completely straight face?"

"I don't know what you're talk—"

"I _know_, Lelouch," Suzaku cut in, with such forceful certainty that even the former Emperor was halted. "I know," he continued, his voice quieting, "about Euphy."

"What?" Lelouch asked, feeling something quake inside him.

"C.C. told me."

"What did she tell you," Lelouch demanded, trying to keep his voice strong, even as he felt like he wanted to cower or collapse or die all over again. _I knew I was missing something, but it couldn't be... Even C.C. wouldn't dare to interfere in this!_

"If you told someone to jump off a cliff as a joke, but your Geass was unintentionally active, you would have no way to take back the command, would you, Lelouch? With Euphy, you never meant to—"

Rather than letting him finish, Lelouch whirled toward the witch responsible, full of fury and pained betrayal, and practically screamed, "How _could_ you! _Why_ would you tell him? Didn't you realize that it would only make it harder—" Lelouch cut himself off abruptly, his eyes widening. "No, of course you realized. That's exactly why you did it, isn't you?" he accused.

When C.C. merely remained silent, Lelouch turned warily back toward Suzaku. "_When_ did she tell you?"

Suzaku licked his lips. "The morning before..." They all knew he didn't have the strength to say: _I killed you_. "The morning before Zero Requiem," Suzaku finished unsteadily, instead.

When Lelouch turned back to C.C., it was with unholy anger in his eyes, his hands clenching menacingly. "You told him to try to get him to back out!"

"I was just making certain he knew what he was doing," C.C. replied.

"What gives you the right—"

"Enough, Lelouch!" Suzaku interrupted, grabbing his shoulder to turn him back around so they were fully facing each other. "What makes you think _I_ didn't deserve the truth? About Euphy, if nothing else!"

"Suzaku," Lelouch began, and his anger suddenly abandoned him. "What good will it do you to carry even more guilt?"

"So you're claiming it's better, to think that my best friend was a heartless monster? It's better, to think that everything was just an act to you, and my own heart was so blind that I couldn't even tell the difference between real and fake, when it came to the most important friendship of my life?"

Lelouch winced, remembering his own painful recognition of his family's true coldness, following his mother's death. He sometimes still dreamed of putting a bullet through Clovis's head, and how sick he'd felt to realize that the enemy who'd carelessly ordered the slaughter of so many innocents in Shinjuku was the very same charming older brother who'd drawn such beautiful pictures of Nunnally.

"...I know that lie must have hurt you, but should I have just let your guilt sap the life from you instead?"

"If we are alive because we feel, Lelouch," C.C. said, "and we feel because we care about others, then what does it do to a person if he can't tell whether those bonds are real or not?"

"C.C., you can't be comparing my lying about my intentions to your own experiences!" _Your Geass affected everyone around you, so that you forgot what a true human interaction was like—though even __you had the one who granted you the Geass in the first place._

_...That's what you're really saying, isn't it? Because you could trust only her to be unaffected by your Geass, you felt your relationship was the only true one you had. So when it turned out it was all just a lie... Of course, how can you want to continue living, if you feel that even the things that matter most aren't real?_

_But C.C., what right did you have to intervene with Suzaku? What if he's not strong enough to bear yet another layer of guilt? He would never have known I was lying if you hadn't told him!_

"Suzaku, what I did to Euphy would have been the same no matter what reason I gave. At least if I kept quiet, you could hate me thoroughly and not feel conflicted about it."

Suzaku's expression twisted, somewhere between anger and agony. "What gives you the right to decide how _I_ should feel? To fill me up with so much poisonous hatred—the things I _did_, Lelouch, because of that rage, the _sins_ I committed!" he shouted. "How was that _better_?! I would rather feel guilty every day for the rest of my life for killing my best friend, than to hate the world because I felt I _never_ truly had a friend in the first place!"

"Suzaku—"

"You had _no right_ to lie to me about this, and you have no right to be angry at her, for only telling me the truth!"

"You accept suffering so easily, as if it is your due, but how can _I_ possibly be satisfied with a world where you're a slave to your own misery?" Lelouch demanded. _I don't care if that's a selfish sentiment. If I'm willing to sacrifice my own life, aren't I allowed to choose what the repercussions should be? _"Whether you're guilty or hateful, neither is acceptable! So I thought, if you could kill the one you hated, the one you swore to destroy and thereby avenge Euphemia... If you could start out fresh, that loss laid to rest, with a new identity and a new purpose..."

_After all I did to you, after I destroyed you so thoroughly..._

"After Britannia invaded, you never seemed to be able to take any happiness for yourself, but I thought, if you could pursue a selfless goal, perhaps you would be able to take satisfaction in that. If you had trouble taking pride in yourself anymore, I thought I would make the whole world recognize you as a hero. Maybe, after a few years, you would finally realize that you _are _one."

_It wasn't only Nunnally. I wanted to make this a better world for everyone—you particularly._

"Now you'll just waste your life, feeling miserable for things that weren't your fault in the first place! You will pay and pay an endless debt that isn't yours, when this world was made so that you could be happy in it! How is that better? How can that possibly be better?!" he screamed back.

_I need to calm down, to think, recalculate, now that I know..._

He wrenched away from Suzaku's temporarily nerveless fingers to give C.C. a poisonous glare. "How dare you betray me like this!" he shouted furiously, before storming off to lock himself in the bathroom, until either his deadly anger calmed or eternity passed—whichever was sooner.


	12. Urgency

"Ah, Lelouch?" a voice called hesitantly.

"What?" he bit back, trying not to verbally chew Suzaku's head off, dearly as he wanted to do violence to something at the moment. _Now that I've finally figured out how I got this Code, I'm stuck with the mystery of how to get __**rid**__ of it. The best solution would be to get C.C. to take it back, but even if it really was just an accident, she'll never agree to help me if I just charge out there cursing her—which is exactly what I want to do!_

"About how much longer are you going to stay in there?" Suzaku asked.

"Right now? It's looking like the rest of eternity."

"Oh. That's...kind of a long time. Any chance you could come out before then?"

"Go away, Suzaku." _If only I could go someplace to truly be alone—but because of Zero Requiem, I'm trapped here in these rooms. _It was like he'd simply traded up to a bigger coffin.

"Well, I would give you time to cool off, but...I kind of did something stupid," Suzaku admitted.

Lelouch scowled even harder, trying not to feel too worried. _How much trouble could he possibly have gotten into in the past half hour?_

If even Suzaku could recognize relatively quickly that something he'd done was stupid, though, then in the eyes of the rest of the world...

Against his better judgement, Lelouch asked, "What exactly did you do?"

"See, I should have figured something was up when C.C. suddenly said she'd make me tea, because she's never actually that nice to me. But she claimed she just wanted to help me break out of my 'malaise' and regain my sense of 'urgency', and she looked really sincere and everything... She just kept pouring and pouring, though, saying how she went to all the trouble to help me out, and I really should appreciate her effort and have just one more cup, and..."

Suzaku rattled the doorknob rather forlornly. "Lelouch, can we just switch rooms for a little while? C.C. is out in the dining room still, so you can take the bedroom—"

"What makes you think I want to switch?" he asked, wanting very much to stay angry, but it was a struggle to sound arch as a small tremble went through his middle. _Clever, clever witch._

"Please, Lelouch, just for a little while?" When Lelouch didn't answer instantly, staccato pounding began on the door. "Please, I'm _really_ feeling that sense of urgency now!" Suzaku declared, voice clearly distressed, even as Lelouch's shoulders started shaking with the force of suppressing the sound attempting to rise up inside him.

"I don't know, Suzaku, maybe you should have just one more cup?" he suggested, trying to at least keep his voice level. _I shouldn't let her defeat me this easily, but..._

The pounding on the door was positively frantic now. "Lelouch, we're best friends, aren't we? Just do me this one favor, and I swear I'll never ask you for anything again in my life, just—"

Finally unable to hold it in anymore, Lelouch began laughing outright.

"Are you...are you _laughing_ at me in there?" Suzaku demanded through the door, part incredulous and part severely aggrieved. "Lelouch, please, this is a desperate situation!" he declared, voice nearly breaking.

"Oh, fine," Lelouch snickered, reaching out to turn the lock before Suzaku accidentally broke the door down. He had forgotten how quickly his friend could move when he wanted to, though, so Lelouch was mildly surprised when no sooner had the telltale sound of the latch reached him, than he found himself being set down outside the door, with the sound of it clicking closed behind him soon echoing in his ears. Suzaku himself had been nothing but a blurred burst of pressured air.

_Huh. He really is that fast. _Lelouch shook his head, still smiling. _Too bad for the sake of his bladder that his brain can't keep up with that speed._

It had been a rather underhanded trick for for C.C. to pull. Effective and—he had to admit—just a bit amusing, but still incredibly underhanded.

_Suzaku is just too guileless for his own good._

_...and too guilty for his own good..._

_...and too impulsive for his own good..._

Really, Suzaku was a lot of too many things for his own good. Those characteristics could make him a very dear friend, but it worried Lelouch deeply, what would happen to Suzaku when he no longer had any friends around. Previously, Lelouch had thought Nunnally would be able to help him stay grounded in some variant of common sense, but it seemed like their relationship had been strained to the breaking point by Suzaku's own blatant stupidity.

_What am I going to do with you, Suzaku? _Lelouch thought, shaking his head with a sort of sad fondness. _A grown man who can't even manage his own bladder..._

It truly was some special kind of pathetic.

Suzaku finally stepped out of the bathroom, a look of pure, intense relief on his face, and Lelouch felt one corner of his lip twitch, as their eyes met.

"You're still laughing at me, aren't you?" Suzaku accused.

"Only on the inside."

Suzaku gave him a sour look.

"What happened to my best friend who said he needed _just one favor_, and he'd never ask me for anything else so long as he lived?" Lelouch mock lamented. "Or was that just your bladder talking?"

"You can't believe statements made under that sort of duress!" Suzaku defended.

"Oh? You make it sound like some sort of torture."

"It _was_ torture! And I can't believe you were laughing at me in there! Have you no pity? No sense of common decency?"

Lelouch pointed at his own chest. "Demon Emperor, remember?"

"I can't believe you're using that old excuse," Suzaku complained with a twist of his lips. "Zero Requiem is over."

"Yes, and I'm not even supposed to be here anymore, Suzaku. Now that we know the Code transference was just an accident, it's time I made my second exit."

All signs of ease or levity suddenly dropped from Suzaku's frame. "No. No, Lelouch, you can't mean that—"

"I can and do. I am sorry that this will be painful for you, but you knew that this is what would have to happen from the beginning." He met his friend's gaze squarely, his own expression deadly serious as well. "Suzaku, promise me that you won't push Nunnally away anymore. If not for your own sake, then at least for hers. You must know how much it hurts her, to lose such a dear friend."

"...Things would be a lot easier between Nunnally and I if I weren't the one who took her brother away from her. If you would just—"

"Suzaku, we've been through this. I can't." He shook his head. "You don't have to watch, okay? I'll just go off on my own—"

"No," Suzaku objected, latching onto his arm, as if Lelouch had some intention of vanishing right there and then. "I won't let you—I don't want you to die in the first place, but I won't let you just crawl off to some hole to perish, all alone. If I eventually have to say goodbye again, I at least want to stay with you until the very end."

For a moment, Lelouch started to calculate the potential ramifications of allowing that or not, before realizing how pointless that would be. _He's not going to take no for an answer, and he'll feel guilty, either way._ "...Alright," he agreed, trying to sound reassuring, though he knew that despite his best efforts, there would be regret in his voice. "Thank you, Suzaku. It will be a comfort to have you there."

Something in his friend's expression twisted painfully. "Lelouch, about earlier, when I said you were my best friend—_that_ wasn't just my bladder talking. You are my best friend. My very best."

"...And you, mine," he replied, wondering even as he did if it counted as another betrayal to say so. _Would it hurt you less in the end, if I lied and pretended your friendship meant nothing to me?_

For that moment, though, with Suzaku smiling back at him, Lelouch wanted nothing more than to make impossible promises, if only to maintain that fragile illusion of happiness a little longer. _I wish I could take more time to savor finally being able to claim you as a friend again, Suzaku, but I will only end up making our inevitable parting harder if I linger._ He sighed, struggling to remind himself of the logic behind his plans, even as some part of his heart rebelled against letting go.

_Please, look after him, Nunnally, as I know he will do his best to look after you._

_Now, before I lose my temper or my nerve..._ "I shouldn't put off talking to C.C. any further," Lelouch said wearily.

Suzaku nodded, the motion jerky, as if Lelouch's words had fallen on his ears as harshly as a physical blow, his shoulders hunching inward in a subtle expression of defeat. It was an almost guilty relief to turn away from Suzaku's pained, tight lipped expression.

"Lelouch," C.C. greeted, as he walked back into the dining room. Her eyes were sad, too, and he tried not to let his own betrayed feelings get in the way of what he knew to be the truth.

"I know why you did it. It's difficult for me to wholeheartedly appreciate the way you went behind my back and revealed my deepest secret, but I realize you were trying to protect me, even if it was from my own decisions. Certainly, you've shown me more loyalty than I deserve. But you must realize, C.C.: it is time for me to die."

"You want me to take the Code back, then?"

"Yes."

For a moment, he thought she might refuse outright or attempt to leave, but then the witch merely sighed and nodded, eyes flat.

"As you wish," she said heavily.

_She's really agreeing, so easily? _ After all she'd gone through to try to get rid of her Code in the past, Lelouch had expected much more of an argument, something that would challenge him to the very limit of his wits, and he looked at her closely, trying to find any sign of deception. Although there was an underlying tenseness to C.C.'s blank face, her expression was unreadable.

_Unacceptable. If this is a trick, I'm not going to fall for it_, Lelouch thought, knowing how devious she could be with sufficient motivation. There was something almost too familiar about her expression, though, and it tugged at his memory, even if he could swear it wasn't a normal look for her to wear.

A moment later, the answer came to him. _Of course. Even if it was just a one time occurrence, I've spent so much time analyzing and reanalyzing the morning of Zero Requiem, I can remember every expression that she made then._


	13. Checkmate

"C.C., you're not going to cry over me, are you?" he had teased her, one last time, on what should have been the final morning of his life. Though Lelouch had never have admitted it aloud, he'd hoped to see her smug, familiar smile once more before they parted.

"Who would cry over a fool like you?" she'd replied with her usual aloofness, but her expression had been subdued, denying him what he'd been too proud to request. He'd thought that last, unreadable look as she'd stepped out the door had been the end; neither of them had ever been honest enough to give long goodbyes. She must have left his side only to go directly to Suzaku, though, in order to make one last attempt to save his wretched life.

_Why, C.C.? We were accomplices, but you must have known you would receive no thanks from me for interfering. What could you have hoped to gain, when I'd already refused to grant your wish?_

Gazing intently into her unreadable expression for a moment longer, Lelouch realized that it wasn't only C.C. who wore such an expression.

_This is the face Suzaku wears underneath his guilt and anger. This is the face I saw in the mirror, when I thought Nunnally was dead—-the face of a grief too powerful to expose. That morning, you asked who would cry over me, C.C., but the truth is, you already __**have**__._

The thought stung, because he'd always hoped Zero Requiem would bring an end to all the suffering. The agony of Suzaku's expression from earlier was painfully fresh in his mind, along with Nunnally's terrible recorded screams of grief, and the cold fate he was consigning C.C. to was beginning to deeply weigh on Lelouch, as well.

_You've spent so many centuries alone, and here I am asking you to accept a continued sentence with no end in sight._

Having her take the Code back had seemed like such a simple solution in the midst of his anger, when he'd only been calculating the best line of attack for his arguments. Ancient irritant though she was, seeing C.C. capitulate in the midst of her own incompletely concealed grief made her seem much less of an adversary and much more of a victim; Lelouch still vividly remembered the feeling of being trapped in that dank coffin, all alone, with no hope of rescue, cursing his continued existence with whatever fervency wasn't crushed out by the unending boredom.

_Is it like that for you, C.C.? Trapped in an existence that's not really a life, wanting to die and yet not able to?_

He looked at her falsely calm face and hesitated before taking her hands, feeling the eternal strength of the Code welling up inside his mind, a burden that rejected the limits of age and mortality. As if the world was determined to make the situation worse, Suzaku chose that exact moment to step into the room as well, tormented green eyes watching them. There was a Knight pin clutched in his hands: the symbol of the Knight of Zero, a loyalty pledged to a selfish Emperor, who saw only the end he wanted to achieve.

_I can't let myself get distracted_, Lelouch thought desperately.

He turned back to C.C., the cruelty of centuries of isolation whispering into his mind, and he could see the ancient sadness in her eyes clearly now. She didn't have to do this; she only chose to bear the Code in order to spare _him _that fate.

_No, I mustn't waver._

He thought of why he'd started all this in the first place: for the sake of a tiny girl who'd placed so much faith in a world that couldn't live up to her gentle expectations. Yet, that same thought also reminded him of the father who had callously shattered her trust, abandoning his children to a merciless war.

Suddenly, Lelouch was so sick with himself.

_How many times will I take advantage of the people who believe in me most, for the sake of my own plans?_

Slowly, he allowed his hands to drop. "...I can't," he whispered, shaking his head. "It was cowardly and selfish of me to skip out without fully paying my debt in the first place. I won't push the Code back onto you, C.C., especially now that there's another way."

"You mean, you'll stay with us?" Suzaku asked from behind him, the wrenching hope in his voice yet another reminder that Lelouch was being given far more than he deserved.

He shook his head. "The Damocles."

"What?"

"It's supposed to be sent into the sun to be destroyed, right? Now that I'm considered dead, no one should be looking for me. If you can just help me sneak on, I can be vaporized alongside that other implement of destruction. That way, even if the Code still attempts to revive me, I'll just continually be destroyed before I can revive."

"No. No, Lelouch! You can't!" Suzaku objected immediately.

"I have to. My very existence is a threat to this peaceful world."

"No!" Suzaku declared again, with the same obstinacy that had allowed them to walk the difficult path to Zero Requiem together.

_I don't know whether that stubbornness is your best trait or your worst one._

"Suzaku, you know what I'm saying is true."

"...Maybe that's so," he finally admitted, "but what gives you the right to keep making all the decisions? _I'm_ Zero, now. I'm supposed to be the one to protect the peace, so I'll make the plan to deal with things, this time!"

_Wonderful. He's been trying to wriggle out of it all this time, and now he only embraces his role in order to thwart me._ "Why do I have the feeling that your 'plan' doesn't involve my permanent destruction?"

"Because I don't want you to die!" Suzaku screamed back, clutching onto Lelouch's forearms as if to hold him there.

Lelouch stared at him for a moment in shock. He'd expected the words but not the raw ferocity and intense volume of the declaration. _Y__ou are the only Knight stupid enough to charge in to __**protect**__ a demon_.

"Suzaku...that's just your logic being defeated by your irrational feelings again. You don't have an actual plan. You're only acting on instinct."

"Well my instinct is telling me that we aren't going to send you into the sun to die for all eternity!"

Lelouch frowned. "I know it's going to be problematic sneaking me on to the Damocles, given the high level of security and the press presence, but what other permanent solutions do we have? It's hard to kill an immortal. That's why I didn't accept the Code in the first place."

"What if we just hide you away?" Suzaku pleaded.

"If I live forever, someone will eventually find me. That's not a fix; it's just a delaying tactic."

"But I'll guard you!"

"You won't live forever, and you're _supposed_ to be protecting Nunnally!" he retorted heatedly.

"Nunnally would want me to save you!"

"When will you realize that I am beyond saving!" Lelouch shouted, his voice ringing, furious and wounded, in the tense air. _Why are you doing this, pretending I'm worth protecting?_ "How many times must I expose the blackness of my heart to you, Suzaku, before you finally see me for the demon I am?"

"But you didn't want to kill Euphy—"

"And does that mean she's any less dead?" Lelouch countered viciously. "Will it bring Shirley back, because I was desperate for her not to die? Will wishing the world otherwise heal crippling injuries, undo sins, raise the dead?" Lelouch shook his head. "This isn't a fairytale where good intentions count for everything. This is the real world where people sin and kill and die, no matter what their intentions were."

"Are you claiming that intentions count for nothing, then?"

"I'm saying that chance and circumstance don't care how humans think! It doesn't matter how we feel or what we wanted; the truth remains the same. The only thing we can do is take responsibility for the outcome and move forward, knowing that every choice we make for ourselves has results the whole world will have to deal with."

Suzaku shook his head. "The way you're saying it, it's like we might as well not try for anything difficult, because if we fail, it's exactly as if we had wanted a bad outcome, in the first place. It's like saying Euphy's idea of the Special Administration Zone means nothing, because it didn't work! I can't think that way, Lelouch! Even if people get hurt, it means something that you tried to help them!"

"Now you're the liar, Suzaku! Because you accepted what I'm saying years ago!" he retorted, his mind already closing in on a win strategy.

"I have not!"

_Weak comeback. You never were good at arguing._

"Yes. You have," Lelouch said, moving the bishop to deliver the sermon, and already seeing the eventual checkmate.

"W-what?" Suzaku asked, obviously unnerved by the certainty in Lelouch's voice.

"You forget how well I know you, Suzaku. You can't plan, even now, so how can you expect me to believe that your childhood self came up with some nefarious plot and deliberately executed it in order to make the world worse?"

"I...of course not," Suzaku acknowledged, clearly confused.

"So you admit it. You were just young and scared and angry. You had people you wanted to protect, and your father threatened them. Without thinking, acting on instinct alone, you did the only thing you could—not because you wanted to do something bad. Not because you hated your father. Not because you hated anyone at all. You did it to protect: both the people you knew and the millions of innocents who would never live long enough for you to know them, if you hadn't done as you did. You acted with good intent in your heart, but the outcome was too terrible for a suddenly fatherless little boy to bear."

Suzaku's confusion had instantly given way agony at the mention of his father. The rook was in place now, looming, like the hard walls of a past that would never be completely buried, and between the castle and the holy man, the opposing king was almost fully pinned.

"That's why I know you agree with me, Suzaku," Lelouch whispered, finally moving his own king to menace the only space his cornered opponent could retreat to, "because you have been punishing yourself for that one instinctive act ever since. In all the years since then, through all the pain the world has heaped on you and all the guilt you've put yourself through, have you ever—even just once—considered forgiving that small boy with blood on his hands and a fierce protectiveness in his heart, who only wanted to make the world a better place?"

Suzaku stared at him, eyes wide, voice silent, his whole face gone still and horribly, horribly pale. Lelouch waited for another moment more, just to see if there would be any miraculous countermeasure.

There was none. Suzaku didn't respond. More correctly, he couldn't respond. There were no moves left for him to make. He crumpled in on himself.

"I thought not," Lelouch whispered.

_Checkmate._

For half of an instant, his mind savored the victory over his opponent's impressive stubbornness. The next second he could no longer see the adversary he'd defeated. Instead, there was only his best friend there before him, trembling with remembered horror. _He looked just like that, when Mao confronted Suzaku about killing his father._

Another moment passed, and the thought came: _I treated him that callously. _Once more disgusted with the results of his own stubborn pride, the black king turned sharply and walked out before his foolish temper could propel another hurtful word from his mouth. Only the witch was left to pick up the pieces.

_Despite my best intentions, I always end up hurting the people I care for._

_That's why I need to die as soon as possible: in order to keep this world safe from myself._


	14. Freedom

Suzaku stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, Zero's mask darkening everything he saw. No matter what he chose to call himself now, he was still trapped in the image of all he had once sworn to destroy, his identity sacrificed to the ideal of Zero for as long as his body had life, doomed to bear the weight of a dead man's legacy forever.

When he thought about it, Lelouch vi Britannia had won against Kururugi Suzaku in every way possible.

_I've never been able to win any of our arguments. I could never defeat his plans. Even when it seemed like I won something, in the end it was just an opening to lose more. I'm no match for him._

_...So how can I save him, when he is determined to die?_

He clenched his fists, battered by the knowledge that he could not win this as he was, and yet at the same time, he could not afford to lose. _I must change. I must get stronger._ Of course, he'd told himself the same thing after Euphy's death. It hadn't done him any good. Lelouch could think circles around him without even trying, and Suzaku still didn't have a rebuttal for his last argument. Frustrated, he turned away from the mirror to get out his box of mementos.

_But they are really just the reminders of my sins, aren't they?_

He held his father's watch in his hands.

_How could I forgive myself for that? For killing my own father? _

_My intent, it doesn't..._

But now he could see exactly how contradictory that was, to feel that Euphy's purpose for establishing the Special Administration Zone meant everything, regardless of the outcome, and yet to curse himself eternally, even though he had gone in to speak to his father only intending to save lives.

_But unlike Euphy, in the heat of my anger and the depth of my fear, I made a terrible decision..._

He stared down at the pin he'd received as the Knight of Zero.

_Just as you have made terrible decisions, Lelouch._

He understood all too well how his friend could be trapped by his own guilt over killing Euphy and inadvertently starting cascades of actions that had led to horrible tragedies. _You didn't mean for things to turn out like that, and you were so, so sorry, but because there's nothing you can do to bring back the dead..._

Should Lelouch really have to suffer forever for crimes he had never wanted to commit? Could that possibly make anything better? Suzaku looked down at the Knight pin Euphemia had given him, its bright colors chosen for a more hopeful time, when fragile dreams of peace had been shaped by her gentle hands.

_I believe that her efforts had meaning, even if her plans didn't succeed. I believe that her way of thinking was right._

Of course, that inevitably led to the question of exactly how he could reconcile that belief with his past actions. _Euphy wouldn't have wanted me to take revenge on Lelouch. She would have forgiven him from the start, because her true wish was for us all to live happily together._

The only thing that had given him the strength to reject Charles' plan, which would have reunited him with Euphy, was the knowledge of how deeply she would have disagreed with such a cold hearted world. _To give up caring for others, because there is nothing to be lost in an unchanging present and nothing left to gain from stagnant memories, goes directly against her kindness, hope, and trust. _After all the other things Suzaku had betrayed, he'd wanted to at least stay loyal to her, and yet...

_I truly have betrayed your memory, haven't I, Euphy? Because I have no forgiveness in my heart. Like Nunnally, you would never have wanted me to commit to a plan that meant killing my best friend, even for the sake of peace. You would have tried to find a better way._

He shut his eyes tightly, pained by the thought that he was traitorous in everything he did.

_As the Knight of Seven, even as the Knight of Zero, I wanted to believe that Lelouch's actions were worse than mine, because when he did something terrible, he didn't care about the people he hurt. But that wasn't actually true, was it? My desire to make someone I was close to suffer as much as I did, though—that was the truly evil thing, wasn't it, Euphy?_

_That's why...__I don't care anymore if your hands are bloody, Lelouch. I don't care if the world wants you dead. What right do people who don't know you have to demand that you pay for sins they can't even begin to understand?_

But his anger was not for strangers alone. _Lelouch, since you know what it feels like to be on the other side of this, how can you do this to me? To Nunnally? What right do you have to assign yourself a punishment that will cost those who care for you almost more than we can bear?_

Of course, it was deeply hypocritical of Suzaku to get angry about that, when he still felt like he should be punished for his own crimes. Worse, Lelouch had never had any interest in listening to hypocritical arguments. Suzaku's fists clenched again, and even through the gloves, his blunt nails dug with bruising force into his own palms. All his thoughts led him back in circles to the same place: he was in no position to change things as he was, yet that didn't change his need to.

_I am tired of watching the people I care for suffer, of watching them __**die**__._

In the depth of that pain drenched frustration, in desperation to break away from the path he was on, for the first time in his life, Kururugi Suzaku could finally contemplate the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the punishment that he'd forced down on himself for so long could be wrong, as well.

_Lelouch...you are just as tired of watching the suffering as I am, aren't you?_

He looked down at the Knight of Zero pin, dark colors and sharp edges a fitting reflection of the time it had been crafted for.

_I can't allow this to continue. If I want to succeed in changing the world, first I must change __**myself**__._

"Where are you going?" C.C. asked, as he stormed out through the living room.

"To throw out some trash," he told her. Even in Zero's private transport, the flight to the sea was still more than long enough for his determination to go from hot burn to cold steel.

Standing on the deserted pier, his gloves discarded, he held his father's watch in one hand, weighing it against the Knight pins he held in the other.

_I'm sorry. There is nothing I can do to bring you back, Father, and I can't keep paying forever, not when there are people still alive who would suffer along with me._

He took one last, long look at the watch in his hand, stroking his finger along the worn metal, remembering the solid familiarity of his father's presence, hours spent in attempted meditation beside him, and those rare but precious expressions of pride. _I loved you, so much, but I can't stay that grieving little boy anymore, Father, because he only knew how to follow the lessons you taught: how to place control above compassion, how to solve conflict with stubbornness and strength, and how to hate to the bitter end._

_For the sake of the future, I have to let those lessons go—even if it means finally letting go of you and this guilt, as well. I can't hate myself anymore._

He cocked his arm back behind his head and threw. The watch sailed in a high, perfect arc, glinting brightly in the sunlight for just a moment before disappearing underneath the waves.

It wasn't quite the same as wiping away a scar, but somehow, there was a taste of freedom in it.

"These will mean something different, now," he told himself, holding a Knight pin in each hand. "They won't be representations of my sins, but reminders of my purpose." He cradled the pin in his left hand. "With all her heart, Euphy wished for peace." He clutched the pin in his right. "And as Lelouch's Knight, I will bring it to him, whether he wants it or not," he declared with grim determination.

The bright flare of that conviction carried him swiftly back to the palace. Unfortunately, fate seemed determined to keep him dancing in old and familiar patterns: no sooner had he committed to a path with all his heart, than reality rudely shifted to derail his plans. This time, the realization took no longer than shutting the door of his own suite; the solemness of Lelouch's face immediately filled him with dread.

Suzaku had, of course, been trying his best to think of some way to change Lelouch's mind on the way back from the pier, but an actual victory strategy still felt far away. _Please don't tell me it's time to..._

"I know you just got back, Suzaku," Lelouch said, in direct contradiction of his silent plea, "but we really need to leave now to give ourselves time to get all the way out to the launch site and then get through the security around the Damocles."

_Please, not yet—it's too soon. I just need more time, and..._

Every muscle in his body remained tensed sharply in dread at the pronouncement, until he forced himself to relax. "Alright, Lelouch. I can sneak you and C.C. onto Zero's personal transport pretty easily. It's fast, and people won't find it suspicious if Zero shows up to witness the launch," he said.

What he really wanted to do, of course, was shout or beg or maybe even just tie his friend up until he changed his mind, although Suzaku knew that sort of impulsive action would only delay the plans of someone as intelligent and determined as Lelouch.

_No, he was right when he said I act too impulsively sometimes. I can't win this by strength of muscle or will; he won't accept commands pressed on him from the outside. I have to persuade him to want to keep living somehow, and that means I have to play along with some decisions I disagree with, in order to get the chance to change things later._

Playing along with repugnant ideas was, of course, something his time spent swearing allegiance to Charles zi Britannia had given him more than ample experience in, and thankfully, next to suppressing his own raging emotions, getting Schneizel to rearrange the guards took next to no attention. In addition, Suzaku was more than experienced enough as a pilot to get them to their destination without really thinking about it. That left his mind free to concentrate on his most pressing problem.

"Lelouch, can I ask you something?" he questioned only a couple of minutes after take off, glad that C.C. had been convinced to ensconce herself in the passenger compartment by a few boxes of pizza, leaving the two of them alone to have a private conversation.

"That depends on what you're going to ask about. You know I can't agree to continue living," Lelouch responded wearily from the copilot's seat, watching the small blue triangle representing their transport slowly moving across the geographic display.

Suzaku clenched his teeth, knowing that for now, he couldn't charge into that battle head on, no matter how much he wanted to. "I—even if you are going to die, Lelouch," he said, desperately hoping his own words were a lie, "I still want to set things right between us. I don't want to continue living with these regrets, so..." _Forgive me for deceiving you like this, but there is something I am desperately seeking. You understand that, right, Lelouch? Because you have lied so much, as well._

Lelouch's eyes softened. "What is it that you want to ask?"

"Are you very mad at me?" Suzaku asked hesitantly.

"Mad?" Lelouch actually looked confused. "About what?"

"I...I stabbed you." _I killed you, but I'm too much of a coward to say it like that._

"Exactly according to plan," Lelouch said, as if that settled things.

_Your blood was all over, and Nunally was screaming and screaming._ It was hard to think how Lelouch could dismiss it so easily. _I put a hole straight through you._ "Did it...didn't it hurt a lot?"

"Adrenalin is a wonderful analgesic," Lelouch replied placidly, with just a hint of his familiar smirk, as if something that clinical could actually be honest.

"But did it _hurt_?"

"...Not as much as other things," he finally answered, looking away from Suzaku, who, as pilot, had been keeping half an eye on the controls, anyway.

"Things I've done?" Suzaku prompted after a short hesitation, wondering if he could really stand to hear an honest answer to that.

"Suzaku, why are you always so determined to blame yourself?" Lelouch countered, sounding as if his patience were sorely strained.

"I'm not trying to—" He shook his head. _Why do we always end up arguing?_ "I'm just asking you, Lelouch. I'm asking if you're angry about what I've done. About my betraying you to the Emperor. About...about my killing you," he added in a small voice.

"_I_ was the one who ordered you to kill me, Suzaku, so I could hardly blame you for that. As for the rest...do you really think I would have asked you to work together with me if I were still holding a grudge?" Lelouch stared down at the control panel with a solemness that edged into despair. "Your actions were mostly my own fault, anyway, because of what I did to you, and to Euphy, to Shirley, to everyone."

_But you never meant for the innocent to suffer, did you? The guilty, on the other hand..._

"You're really going to let everything I did go, just like that, after all those times you've been furious with me?" he asked, quietly incredulous. _There aren't many people on this planet who can hold a __grudge as deeply as you, Lelouch._

"I was furious because I felt betrayed. But the truth is, just as you wouldn't join the Black Knights, I wouldn't agree to adopt your methods, either. _I_ was the one who told you it was okay to hate Euphy's killer. _I_ was the one who wouldn't listen, when you tried to explain what happened at Kururugi Shrine."

Lelouch's words stirred up the memory of the first home Suzaku had ever known. _At the Shrine, you still called me a friend, in spite of everything, didn't you? You may have claimed that intentions don't count for anything, Lelouch, but knowing that I didn't intend to betray you to Schneizel—if it didn't make a difference, then why would you ask about it? On the contrary, maybe my answer is the very reason you're being so nice now?_

"But I still don't understand, Lelouch. You're saying you're not angry, and yet, as Zero, you still want me to be punished?" _There must be a lie in there, somewhere._

"You don't—oh, Suzaku, you still don't realize it, do you?" Lelouch asked, his eyes almost pitying enough to erode Suzaku's already battered pride even further. His friend's lips quirked into a wry, bitter smile. "Of course. I can hardly expect you to know if I never tell you," Lelouch said, turning to stare down at the control panel with an almost musing look, an all too familiar sign to Suzaku.

_Don't disappear off into your internal thoughts now—not when there is so little time left!_ "If I don't understand, why don't you just _explain_?" Suzaku asked in barely contained frustration, tired of feeling like he were stumbling through a play without knowing the script. _If I don't know what you're truly thinking, then how will I ever convince you to change your mind? _"What harm could it do, to just be honest for a little while?" he continued desperately, this time making it more of a plea, as it occurred to him that anger had never gotten him what he truly wanted where Lelouch was concerned.

Suzaku thought bitterly about all the things he'd done in the grips of his rage. _I suppose I more than deserve your suspicion, but please, place your trust in me this one last time, anyway._

"Death always brings a sort of personal honesty," Lelouch told him tiredly, and it was only because of the softness of his voice that Suzaku realized he'd been unconsciously raising his own. "What is the point of lying, if there is no future to be changed, no cherished outcome be be hoped for? The dead seek nothing. If they painstakingly maintain a lie to the grave, it is not because of themselves, but because of those who continue on afterward."

"Now you're claiming you're lying to me for my own good?" he asked incredulously, trying not to be infuriated by Lelouch's casual arrogance.

"Would you really accept the truth if I told you, Suzaku? Or would my every word be twisted into its own poison, since you remain so inclined to cast yourself as the villain?" Even though the Code supposedly stopped him from aging, Lelouch's eyes still looked so very old as he stared back at him. "I...truly worry for you, Suzaku," Lelouch finally admitted, and however condescending his views might occasionally be, there was real concern in his voice.

_Don't look at me like that. You're the one about to die._

"Lelouch, even if I won't understand your words perfectly, you must know how much it bothers me, to try to wade through all these lies, second and third guessing everything. You wanted to choose my punishment because you don't trust me to choose my own, but if you keep silent, do you really think the answers I'll make up will be any kinder that whatever words you might select?"

Lelouch smiled bitterly. "No, I don't suppose so. But promise me one thing, Suzaku?"

"What?"

"No matter what I'm about to tell you, you must not stop being Zero. That was and is my final request."

"I promise," he affirmed solidly. At least that he could be honest about.

_I won't abandon my duty to the world we made together. Even if I haven't been a very good hero up until now, the only solution is to get better at it, right? And I'm going to start by saving someone very important to me._

"Thank you," Lelouch told him solemnly. He briefly closed his eyes, remaining silent for a moment, as if fortifying himself for what was to come next. "Suzaku, the truth is, I didn't select you as Zero because _I_ felt you owed the world. _You_ are the one who feels you need to atone. I just used your own belief against you, to get you to agree to do what I wanted. In reality, I selfishly selected you as Zero because you were the only one who could succeed in it, and I desperately needed my plan to succeed."

"But there are plenty of other people who—"

Lelouch shook his head. "Not to me," he stated, and his words had the ring of finality. "I was trapped, you know," he said, eyes idly tracing the ship's trajectory line on the navigational display. "I couldn't abandon Nunnally, not like our parents abandoned us. But when I realized that the world would just hurt her over and over, I had to pursue the power to change it, even if that meant doing terrible things, things that would wound her to ever know about," he admitted, lifting a hand up to cover his left eye. "I became part of the same corrupt world I should have protected her from, and yet, I couldn't just leave her defenseless. In the end, my only answer was you. You were the only one who could save me from the dilemma I faced."

"Why though? Why only me?" _Why place your faith in someone who betrayed you so badly?_

"Because long before you ever donned the mask of Zero and started playing that part for the rest of the world, you played it for me alone, when I was just a little boy in a foreign land."

"I don't know what you mean," Suzaku said, frowning. "Lelouch, I never did anything!"

"No, you did the greatest thing of all. When Nunnally and I first arrived in Japan, Suzaku, I hated everything. Every person we met, everyone we didn't meet, the beds we slept in and the meals we ate, the sky that cried on us and the sunrise that Nunnally couldn't see, I hated it all!" His fists clenched, shaking with old anger. "I wanted to make the whole world go away, to lock Nunnally up in a glass cage and never let her out, because her pain could hurt me more than I could bear!" he said, the force of his emotion making his voice tremble.

"Lelouch," Suzaku murmured gently, not sure, as he reached out to lay his hand on one thin shoulder, if his friend would actually allow even that small comfort, but despite his doubts, Suzaku was unwilling to sit back and do nothing. _You'll forgive me if I fly a little slowly, though, right? I don't want to get where we're going._

The former emperor looked over at him with a wry, self-depreciating smile. "I thought...I honestly thought of the whole world as my enemy, Suzaku, and in the World of C, I realized my father felt the exact same way. He couldn't trust anything! He wanted to intrude on everything private, to get rid of all individuality, because he couldn't be satisfied until the only future left was one of utter, unchanging certainty!"

Lelouch shook his head. "That's not peace, Suzaku. That's the ignorance of a small child. That's what I had when I was so young that my world was no bigger than my immediate family, and nothing truly bad had ever happened yet. I was content because I was too naïve to realize that something ever _could_. But after my mother's assassination, I had to suddenly confront the knowledge that the world could brutally betray me, could cripple and blind Nunnally on a whim. I learned that there was something to hate."

"But what I didn't know then, and what my father never learned, was that there were still things left to love, as well." Lelouch looked over at the hand on his shoulder. "When you, who had started out so hostile toward me, extended your hand in friendship, when you made peace with me, Suzaku, for the first time, I really understood what peace was. It's not ignorance that there's anything bad in the world. It's not the absence of anything that could possibly hurt you. Peace is that feeling that you have in your heart when you know that evil is possible, when you realize that you can be injured, and yet you trust anyway. You have faith in something outside of yourself."

"In the World of C, Suzaku, I realized that the only real difference between myself and Charles zi Britannia was a small Japanese boy who stretched out his hand."

"But that's...that's not even anything, Lelouch," Suzaku objected, shaking his head. "_Anyone_ could have done that."

"Yes, anyone could have. The difference is, _you_ _did_. You saved me, long before Geass, before the war, before I even knew I needed saving. I have it in me to be a true monster, Suzaku. But instead, I was able to defeat that part of myself, because I had you at my side to fight it. That's why it had to be you that donned Zero's mask. Because as suspicious and control driven as I am, the only one I could trust to teach the world something as difficult as peace is the one who taught me in the first place."

Lelouch met his gaze directly, and it was a good thing that the weather was so benign currently, because Suzaku wasn't paying any attention to the controls anymore. "That trust, that faith—to extend your hand, no matter how many times you have been bitten," Lelouch said, reaching up to clasp the fingers still on his shoulder, "_that_ is the very essence of peace, Suzaku, and that is why I chose you to wear this mask. Not as a punishment, but as a sign of my faith that you can teach the injured of this world to believe in something outside of themselves."

Suzaku was silent for a long moment, trying to accept what Lelouch was saying. Part of him didn't think he could believe it, but if there were one thing Lelouch absolutely hated talking about, it was the painful vulnerability of his own past. _If he were lying, he would have chosen something else, anything else, to speak about._

Suzaku took a long, slow breath to steady himself. _All this time, I thought that deep down, you must truly hate me. But I was just blinded by my own bias. The reality is, you've already forgiven me._

He squeezed Lelouch's shoulder a little harder. _ I don't have the words to properly thank you for that, but I'm so grateful. _The unexpected mercy lifted an enormous weight from his conscience, even as the certainty that Lelouch still possessed a heart kind enough to forgive only increased Suzaku's determination not to let his friend die again.

"To extend your hand, no matter how many times you've been bitten, huh?" He smiled, looking at his own bandaged index finger. "So, basically, you're saying I make a good Zero because Arthur has given me a lot of practice?"

It was worth the embarrassment, Suzaku decided, to startle a small laugh out of Lelouch, because in it there was a tiny echo of summer and two small boys and hope and birdsong and light, when all the world and a boundless future had been stretched out before them.

"Well, I believe I put it much more eloquently," Lelouch teasingly responded, violet eyes taking on just a little of their former sparkle, "but I suppose you've finally got the gist of it."

It was much easier to talk to Lelouch after that, to ask all the little questions Suzaku had been holding in and to make the sincere apologies he should have given voice to long ago. In fact, it was astonishingly simple now to say the things he really felt, merely because he knew his friend would accept his words.

_I'm sorry we wasted so much time being angry with each other, Lelouch._

Unfortunately, the renewed ease of their friendship wasn't enough to fundamentally change the current situation, and although Lelouch was in much better humor for the rest of the flight, it did nothing to blunt his persistent stubbornness. All too soon, Suzaku found that they'd reached their destination, without any sign of weakening in Lelouch's conviction.

_**How**__ can I get him to change his plans? _Suzaku thought, frustration beginning to eclipse his resurgent hopes.

_All I want is just to keep this one friend. Is that so much to ask? _

He clenched his fists, thinking of everything he and Lelouch had been through together, since the time he'd first realized how truly amazing the young, grieving prince was: a boy his own age courageously daring to face all the burdens of a cruel adult world, with only a child's feeble strength and an untested but revolutionary brilliance. As a student, Lelouch had allowed even his fierce pride to bend to the plans of more whimsical hearts, and though the shadows of Zero had lurked beneath, those days had been warmed with a gentle happiness. Of course, it hadn't lasted. Despite all the detours they'd taken along the way, his thoughts inevitably gravitated to the tragic end of their path together, where they'd faced down an Emperor and joined hands to remake the world together—at the cost of Lelouch's life.

_Every time I lose someone, people tell me that I have to move past it, forge new relationships, as if it's so simple to let go. No doubt my life would be easier, if I could just find a best friend who didn't insist on calling himself a "demon", but Lelouch, you are the one who made my impossible dreams of peace possible. No matter what the rest of the world thinks of you, to me, you are an irreplaceable person._

The world had never been overmuch moved by his feelings, though, and Suzaku was soon sorely disappointed to learn that Lelouch had somehow gotten hold of the Damocles security plan, apparently not long after he'd announced his intention to be destroyed along with the ship. With all the necessary information available to them beforehand, Lelouch and C.C. had taken no time at all to breach the outer perimeter with the fake press passes and thorough disguises they had apparently made up for themselves, while he was off at meetings and then the pier. The only thing that had stopped Lelouch from immediately trying to breech the inner perimeter was the unexpected presence of Kallen within the current security detail.

_She must have flown in, specifically to see the Damocles sent to its destruction._

Lelouch watched her worriedly, using the zoom capability of the camera he'd brought in as part of his reporter disguise to get a closer look. He was obviously concerned about her ability to disrupt his plans, and Suzaku had never felt more grateful toward his sometimes friend and ofttimes adversary.

"I thought she would be in Japan!" Lelouch complained softly, but with no less fervency despite the lack of volume.

"I think she normally is. I'm pretty sure I overheard Ougi mention something about Kallen wanting to spend time with her mother."

"Then, her mother is—" Lelouch cut himself off, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't ask. Kallen's presence does make this more difficult, though," Lelouch admitted. "I want to avoid creating a major diversion, because if something unusual happens, they may decide to delay the launch until confirming everything is as it should be. If it were only people who didn't know me well, I'd be willing to chance sneaking through with one of the engine modules, but..."

"Engine module?"

"You didn't think the Black Knights would just leave the Damocles sitting around operational, did you? Of course they removed several crucial control components, weapons systems, and also the engine modules. They'll soon be placing all the F.L.E.I.J.A. back aboard the Damocles, too, so that the warheads that aren't needed to overcome the planet's angular momentum can meet with destruction in the sun itself."

_Angular momentum? Does he mean because the planet is spinning on its axis?_ Suzaku frowned. _Sometimes I wish I hadn't missed so much of my school career. _Of course, that only brought his thoughts back around to his current dilemma. _We've lost so much time already, Lelouch. I'm not going to just give up my best friend again._

"If the security detail found some young reporter trying to sneak in with one of the engine units," Lelouch continued explaining, apparently oblivious to Suzaku's current thoughts, "then they'd probably just figure he was trying to make a name for himself by getting some restricted photos. Zero could step in and offer to handle the situation, and I could try again with better understanding of their security procedures."

"But if Kallen found you..."

Lelouch frowned. "Maybe this disguise would fool her," he said, tugging lightly on the wig he was currently wearing, "but she knows me so well..." A troubled look passed over his face. "I'd rather not run the risk. I'll just have to wait until after the guard shift change to try slipping through. You should head back now, though, C.C.," he said, turning to her. "Zero will be fine, but if you stay until the shift change, you'll be past the curfew they're imposing on reporters."

C.C. nodded and held out her hand, a crisply folded paper crane sitting in it. "Here. A parting souvenir."

"You know origami?" Lelouch asked, surprised.

"It would have been a lot of trouble to fold one myself. I'm just giving you one that Nunnally gave to me."

"From Nunnally..." Lelouch picked it up reverently in his hands, staring at it for a long moment before looking back up at her. "Thank you, C.C. For everything."

"You took on the burden of my Code, Lelouch, so I'd say we're even."

One corner of his lips quirked. "Contract completed," he whispered.

They stared at each other for a long minute after that, neither quite willing to say goodbye, until C.C. nodded slightly again. "Contract completed," she echoed, before turning away with a small, sad smile. "Will _you_ be smiling at the end, I wonder?" she asked, looking up into the darkness of space, where the Damocles would soon be headed.

"Even if I shouldn't have, C.C., I got to see just a little glimpse of this new future. When the time comes, I will remember everyone here on this peaceful world, and I will smile. I promise," he assured her.

She nodded. "That's all I can ask for," C.C. whispered, blending by slow degrees back into the shadows, as she finally slipped away. Lelouch stood staring off in the direction she'd left long after she'd completely faded from sight, motionless with some emotion he wouldn't voice, the crane cradled close against his chest.

_I guess I can't blame her for leaving, _Suzaku thought._ It's not like she didn't argue before we left, and she understands the desire to die better than anyone, even myself. _Suzaku, however, was not willing to be satisfied by the promise of one last smile.

_I know you're tired, Lelouch; you must be. Maybe one last smile sounds good in comparison to watching your mother buried and your sister crippled, to living through two wars, fighting the one you most wanted to protect, and being betrayed by your best friend and abandoned by both your parents. I understand why you don't want any more of an existence like that, but life can be so much more than pain, Lelouch. There is a whole future waiting for you to see it. _Thinking of the future, however, also made Suzaku uncomfortably aware of time's oppressive, inexorable passage, the minutes slowly ticking down—to the shift change, to his failure, and to Lelouch's death.

_If only I had been kinder, realized the truth sooner. Would you be so exhausted with life if I had spent __my energy supporting you, rather than attacking? _His regrets accomplished nothing, unfortunately._ As __you warned me before, wallowing in my own guilt won't help me act at my best. I have to focus on my objective, but how do I win a negotiation with the most stubborn man on the planet? _

He grit his teeth and ignored the nervous sweat starting to soak into his gloves, sure that if he just tried hard enough, a solution would come to him—not because any logic told him so, but purely because he couldn't bear to contemplate the alternative.

It got more and more difficult to hold onto that irrational belief, though, with each passing hour.

_Maybe there have been times where Lelouch was __**unable**__ to go through with his plans, but when was he ever __**unwilling**__?_

Suzaku thought desperately on that, his muscles complaining from their time spent crouching in a small, temporarily erected energy filter warehouse, meant to resupply the guards' Knightmares.

_The shift change will come soon. Please. There must be something..._

In his guilt, it was almost like reflex to reach down into his pocket.

_Euphy's Knight pin! Lelouch wanted to leave immediately, so I didn't have a chance to put the pins back._

He stared down at the elegant, gold accented blue and white now nestled in his left hand, as carefully as Lelouch cradled Nunnally's crane, and like the first, clean breath of spring in the stagnant air, the answer came to him: _Euphy._ _C.C. said that he couldn't go through with his original plan because __**Euphy**__ convinced him to accept peace._

_That's it, isn't it, Lelouch? She promised you something your heart could never truly reject. As tired and hurt as you are, what you desire more than death, more than any plan, is to finally have that peaceful future we've all dreamed of, with Nunnally at your side._

It wasn't a guarantee, but it was a chance.


	15. Equal Measure

"Lelouch," he hissed urgently, tugging his friend back, as he began peeking around the corner of the storage building they had just exited.

"What is it? It looks like Kallen's finally being relieved," Lelouch whispered back.

_Then it's time for my shift to start._

His mission was to keep his best friend from slipping away, this time forever, and Suzaku was determined not to fail. "There's something I wanted to tell you. About Euphy."

_Please, if you're still there, in the collective unconsciousness somewhere, help me. Help me find the right words, Euphy._

Lelouch gave him a slightly panicked look. "Suzaku...you don't have to force yourself to talk about..."

"No, but I want to. I want to. I should have said it before you died the first time, and I regretted not saying it."

_I don't know why it's taken me so long. I know this is what you would have wanted from the start, my Princess._

"For Euphy...for what you did to her...Lelouch, as her Knight...I forgive you."

"I..." Lelouch stared at him, his every muscle tensed in shock, his breathing suddenly uneven as his famous eloquence failed him.

Suzaku looked at him sadly, somehow hurt by Lelouch's stunned silence. _Have I been __so spiteful, that not even you could predict this would happen?_ "You never thought you would be forgiven, did you, Lelouch?" he asked, feeling both sympathy for his friend and disgust with himself. _Have __**I**__ been the one who made you feel like you had no future left in this world but hatred?_

"I...I hoped..." The small, pained, incredulous voice gave the true answer away.

Suzaku swallowed. _Forgive me, Euphy. I've been so hurt, so angry, how could I manage to forgive anybody else?_ _But I never meant to turn your death into an endless cruelty. I'm so sorry, my Princess. _

_I promise I'll do better, from now on. I'll fix lives, instead of wreck them. Even if I don't see it myself, I'll try to find the hero you saw in me, the champion of peace Lelouch claimed he found. _

"I'm sorry, Lelouch. Every time something bad has happened in my life, I've looked for someone to hold responsible. It's hard for me to accept that sometimes, bad things happen by accident."

"Because if something important is lost, then it must have a deeper meaning, right?" Lelouch asked, closing his eyes with a pained, bitter smile. "Our hearts tell us that a villain must be behind the destruction of anything precious. Of course, a battle between good and evil should then be waged, so that the evil can be clearly defeated by a hero, and the world can be safe again."

"Yes. Of course you would have to understand that thinking, in order to make a plan like Zero Requiem," Suzaku whispered, realizing how powerful Lelouch's insight had been all along and how easily his own heart had been drawn into the lie. "Lelouch, like everyone else, I've spent my life looking for the Demon Emperor. But unlike the rest of the world, I finally figured out that the 'monster' I wasted so much time hating actually has a heart himself." _ A heart as sad and hurt and tired as my own._

_Why did I have to betray you so many times before I could see that, Lelouch?_

"Suzaku, it's true that the purpose of my reign was a lie, but—"

"How could it be anything else?" he demanded softly, suddenly furious with himself. "Because I was searching for something that wasn't there, of course all I'd find are lies!" He clenched his hands into fists, reminding himself to speak quietly. "It's because of people like me that you had to sacrifice your life in order to break the chain of hatred," he realized, pained. "Because we had to have a symbol, someplace to push all of our hatred onto..."

"Exactly. If the peace of the world can be bought with a single life, that's the sort of deal that can't be passed up, right?"

"That's not the only way, though, Lelouch!" he whispered urgently. "I finally understand the lesson Shirley tried so teach me: there is nothing that can't be forgiven. Because she wasn't blinded by hatred and the need to blame someone else, she saw the truth about you clearly. Euphy and Nunnally, as well."

At the mention of Nunnally, wounded violet eyes shifted downward to lock onto the paper crane still cradled in Lelouch's hand.

_Fold one thousand cranes, and you'll get a wish. Nunnally, let me find a way to grant yours._

"Lelouch, you left your sister in charge of deciding the future, and the future she wants is one with you in it." _Isn't that what you want, as well? A future at her side? _ "So, for Nunnally's sake, I'm asking you to stay."

"Suzaku—" Lelouch looked at him with shocked eyes, but Suzaku wasn't about to back down this time, because if he failed here, there would be no more second chances.

_I've made so many unforgivable mistakes in my life, but somehow, let me correct this one._

"You won't be able to walk around as Lelouch vi Britainnia, 99th Emperor of Britannia, of course. That identity has been destroyed. Zero killed him." He gave the immortal in front of him a small, reassuring smile. "That demon can't hurt you anymore, Lelouch."

"That demon _is_ me."

"No, I don't believe that. Because if anything can eventually be forgiven, then all hatred and distrust can eventually die. Even if some remnant of those monstrosities still lives inside you, they are _not_ you. They can wither away, even as you live on."

"Suzaku, think about who you're saying this to!" Lelouch hissed back. "It would be pure selfishness for me to live, after everything I've done."

"Redemption isn't just about dying, Lelouch. Maybe I don't have the right sort of elegant words to say this, but...you saved me too, you know? When I was just a powerless, angry, distrustful little boy, who hated Britannia and politics and meditation practice and this snotty little brat prince that was going to live in his private hideaway. This friendship thing, it works both ways. In the end, everything comes back around, and now, you're going to have to pay the price for your last Geass, Lelouch."

"What do you mean?"

"You told me to become Zero, a hero to the people. If I'm going to bring peace to the world, then that means everyone, because a Geass is absolute. Lelouch, you realize that means I have to save you too, right?"

"What? How can you think it means that? You're logic is simply—"

"But you said it yourself, didn't you? You put your faith in me. Do you really expect me to forsake you now?" Suzaku said, taking a step forward and grasping Lelouch by the shoulders when he tried to retreat. "You made me your Knight, the Knight of Zero. I won't fail at protecting the one I'm sworn to serve. Never again. Nor will I allow you to hurt Nunnally by dying, when I've promised to protect her, as well."

Lelouch shook his head, finally having the decency to look a little chagrined. "Suzaku, I thank you for your diligence, but you can't just keep acting on instinct without thinking things through. As I've stated before, if I stay in this world, then I will outlive you. How can you control an immortal monster?"

_No, I can't let him wriggle out of this._ _Please. If not for my sake, then for the sake of everyone else who's ever loved him. _Suzaku thought of Nunnally's aching eyes, her quiet, soul wrenching sobs.

_Of course. Nunnally._

"We agreed once that you could achieve anything if you had me by your side. Do you still believe that, Lelouch?"

"Y-yes. But Suzaku, that's the point! You _won't_ be able to _stay_ by my side!"

"Yes, I will, because I will bear this with you, Lelouch. Not at that same time, but together. You remember what we used to do as children, when you'd get too tired to carry Nunnally?"

Lelouch's eyes widened. "I would pass her to you. We took turns carrying her."

"Exactly. I know that you're tired, but you don't have to bear this all alone, Lelouch. I already told you I would accept your Geass. Even though Geass is the thing I hated most of all, for your sake, for the sake of a peaceful world, I have let that hatred go. I will accept your Contract, and when that Geass is developed enough, I will accept your Code, as well. Our Code. We'll trade it, back and forth, and bear the years together."

"Suzaku—"

_Euphy, for both our sakes, this time I will make sure that the negotiation succeeds and the peace proposal is properly accepted. This time, there won't be any accidents or mistakes. _

_My princess, as your Knight, I will complete the work you started._

"You see, it's a good plan, right?"

"But eventually, one of use will die—"

"Then I'll be the one to continue bearing it. But considering we'll have approximately twice our normal life spans in a peaceful world, I think there should be plenty of time to figure something out, even considering my planning ability. Who knows? If a Geass Canceller is possible, maybe we can invent a Code Canceller, as well. Or maybe we'll find a third Zero to hand it to. Maybe we can take a nice trip to the sun, together. You're the planner. I'll let you figure that out.

"But as your Knight, as Euphemia's Knight, as the protector of Nunnally's happiness, as the hero you left to guide this new world, and most importantly, as your best friend, Lelouch...I can't let you die."

"You can't seriously mean—"

"I can. Because even though you may be the most clever schemer on the planet, there's no way you can defeat Zero. You can't destroy the very ideal you created in the first place, Lelouch—it's your own wish. If you want to atone for using your Geass, then you can do it here, in this world, by accepting the consequences of the duty you entrusted to me."

"But the very predicate of that duty was my own death! Suzaku, don't you see, we can't just change things now!"

"Why? Even up to the very last moment, it's not too late to make a different choice. As you chose my 'punishment', why can't I choose yours? Watching you give up on your own life like this, Lelouch," he said, fingers clenching, "I finally understand why you used your Geass on me the first time—because I'm making the very same wish in return!"

Violet eyes widened even further. "Suzaku...you...really mean this, don't you? Even after everything? After all I did, you still think I belong here, in this world?"

"Why shouldn't you? This world is a reflection of all our choices. Even though it was rotten before, why should you alone have to pay for all our sins? No, on the contrary, how dare you think that you can take on the debt that is my own to pay, Lelouch, when I am ready to shoulder it!" he whispered fervently. Suzaku shook his head, frustrated that he couldn't get his meaning across as eloquently as he wanted to. "Neither of us believes in dumping our responsibilities on other people, but responsibility works both ways, Lelouch. If the world has become good now, even after the weight of all our sins, then how can you think you deserve to escape the reward?"

"Because my hands are drenched in blood!"

"This whole world has been drenched in blood; that doesn't mean peace can't grow out of it. Didn't you tell me, already, how easily friendship came out of hatred? So I'm asking you to trust me, one more time, because forgiveness is the better path—the path Euphy chose and the one Nunnally believes in." He extended his hand. "For your sister's sake, for the sake of everyone who's ever cared for you, will you make peace with me, Lelouch vi Britainnia?"

"I..." Lelouch stared at his outstretched hand. "That's not fair. That's not fair, Suzaku. To turn my own wishes against me—"

"Not against _you_, Lelouch. I'm only asking you not to bow to the demands of hatred. Don't you want to see Nunnally again?"

"Of course I want to!" he nearly shouted, despite the precariousness of discovery by the security patrols. "I was separated from her for a year. I thought her dead for a time, and when I finally got her back, after having to fight against her, I had to pretend to be a monster in front of her! I couldn't hold her. I couldn't tell her how I really felt. I couldn't even smile at her properly!" His face was tortured, and he looked almost on the verge of tears. "You have no _idea_ how much I miss her, Suzaku!"

"Then stop tormenting yourself, Lelouch. Didn't you tell me this was supposed to be a good world?" he asked, deliberately turning Lelouch's own argument back on him. "There is a peaceful future waiting for you," he promised. "You only have to accept it," he said, extending his hand a little closer. Suzaku was no orator, but his words held all the weight of the stubborn, hard won friendship that had carried them through the most difficult trials of their lives. The only thing that remained would be to find out if it were enough to last them through this one.

Lelouch looked at his extended hand for a long moment before turning his eyes up toward the sky, as if the stars held some sort of celestial wisdom that he was suddenly desperate to absorb.

"...Before I died for the first time, I spent my last days making plans for the whole world," he admitted quietly, his voice smooth and far off, and Suzaku knew his friend's mind was rushing down a million pathways all at once, with a speed he couldn't hope to keep up with. "Peace seemed like such a complex notion, with so many required conditions, so difficult and fragile, so easily tipped by the mistakes of a single man," he mused.

Lelouch looked down at Suzaku's outstretched hand once more. "But you've often told me I overcomplicate things, haven't you? I try to solve everything at once, when in reality, 'the world' is really just a term for a great many individuals. On an individual level...perhaps peace really is the simplest thing of all."

Lelouch closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, and when he opened them again, the constant weariness that had been in them since he'd died had been replaced with a quiet determination.

"You're right, Suzaku. I learned this path to peace long ago. You taught me and Euphy reminded me: you just stretch out your hand." Nunnally's crane nestled carefully in his left, Lelouch reached out with his right. Their fingers slid toward each other in motion slowed by painful memory, but this time there were no bullets to separate them. The warmth of their palms pressed together.

Otherworldly power flared, and they were standing just at the top of the steps of Kururugi Shrine, facing each other on the ancestral lands with masks and disguises gone. Small, smooth pebbles beneath their feet shone white in the light, as a soft summer breeze ruffled ancient trees overhead. The cicadas hummed and the birds sang, water flowed, and Lelouch's eyes were so intensely bright, the sigil of his Code blazing up to flare wings of light across his heart, even through the fabric of his crisp white shirt.

"Kururugi Suzaku, if you have truly let go of your hatred, then make a Contract with me. I will give you Geass, the Power of Kings, in order to reach the peace you seek, though I warn you, this power will isolate you."

"Isolate me?" Suzaku questioned, smiling indulgently. "You really are such an incurable liar, Lelouch. Aren't I getting my best friend out of the deal?"

Lelouch's lips quirked upward in response. "If you accept my Power, then I will remain with you until the very end, Suzaku."

Suzaku extended his hand once more, in a world that existed only between them. "Then I accept your Contract, Lelouch."

Their hands clasped, and a wordless wish flared with the power of a white gold sun behind his left eye.

Then, they were standing beneath the night sky once more, the air cool and clear as the world of timeless memory dimmed, a shared strength and a shared burden stretched between them, and for the first time in long, long years, the hollow spaces of their hearts filled up with the warmth of a hope fulfilled and a friendship mended, a chain of hatred shattered at their feet.

"Kururugi Suzaku, I accept your peace."


	16. Epilogue: Hay

"_This_ is you plan, C.C.?" Lelouch asked, and from the expression on his face, she could tell that he was hoping against hope that he had somehow misheard what she was saying.

C.C. nodded, completely unperturbed by his lack of approval.

"A _hay cart_?! It could take weeks to get back in this thing!" It was good in a way she didn't quite have words for, to hear the emphatic inflections of his voice, to watch the expressive way his features twisted and shifted with his moods. She, who had existed for hundreds of years, knew it was possible to breathe and yet still be dead inside, but despite being cursed with an endless existence now, Lelouch was very much...

_Alive._

"Lelouch, you really like to argue, don't you?" she asked teasingly, just because she knew it would rile him. "If you had just let Suzaku convince you more quickly, maybe he would have had time to drop us off back at the capital, before Zero had to leave for that press conference on the launch of the Damocles."

"Maybe so, but that doesn't mean we have to ride a _hay cart _back instead!"

"Actually, it does," she replied, lazily looking around at the rolling hills of farmland surrounding them. The area had been chosen as the launch site exactly because there was plenty of open space and few security risks. "Since you won't go within a mile of the press vehicles, it's this or walking."

"Do you have any idea how far we are from civilization? We could walk all day and not see a car!"

"At your pace, it would be several days, but you're the one who didn't make any plans for how to sneak back into the capital," she reminded him.

"That's because I planned on dying!"

"Exactly, so you should be grateful that I came up with this great idea—"

"What's so great about it?!"

C.C. handed him a pile of rumpled clothes with a smirk. "They come with a hat," she added, just because she was so looking forward to seeing him in the outfit. It reminded her of the sort of clothes the old Buddhist monks used to wear.

Lelouch, predictably, complained about the clothes, complained that she was peeking while he changed into the clothes, complained about the hay, complained about the bumps in the road, and further complained about the hardness of the driver's seat (because of course she'd left him to steer the horses, control freak that he was, while she stretched out comfortably on a bed of hay). Eventually, he either must have realized the futility of his words or his voice must have given out, because he finally fell silent, leaving her to her own thoughts.

After living through so many predictable, monotonous years, it was still hard, keeping up with the frenetic pace of change which always seemed to surround Lelouch. This wasn't anywhere close to the results she'd pictured, when she'd spent so many years fantasizing about giving up her Code. Still, she was happy Lelouch had stopped Charles from claiming it, and happier still with the way things had worked out.

_I thought it was a burden that had to be borne alone. But what they're planning..._

It was ridiculous. It was genius. It was so perfectly like Lelouch to end up in a situation like this.

_The isolation I faced..._

C.C. smiled. She hadn't been quite right, in her initial warning to Lelouch, had she? She didn't bother trying to start up a conversation with him quite yet, though. He was probably still holding a grudge because she'd told him how cute he looked in that hat.

It was a luxury indeed, to be able to fuss over such things.

_This peaceful world..._

She closed her eyes, savoring the gentle breeze on her face, the feel of warm sunshine on her skin, and the soft, earthy scent of sweet hay rising up from beneath her. It was dearer, somehow, because she knew she would have only a finite number of days like this, and C.C. smiled, lulled by the gentle rhythm of the cart and the creak of the wheels and the soft sound of Lelouch's breath.

_I think, someday, I'll manage "that smile", Lelouch. But not for a long while, yet._

**HAPPY...END?**

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Author's Notes: If you are looking for the sequel, you can find it under "Fall To Dust" in my profile.**  
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